Alexi Horowitz-Ghazi
Alexi Horowitz-Ghazi reports and produces for Planet Money, telling stories that creatively explore and explain the workings of the global economy. He's a sucker for a good supply chain mystery — from toilet paper to foster puppies to specialty pastas. He's drawn to tales of unintended consequences, like the time a well-intentioned chemistry professor unwittingly helped unleash a global market for synthetic drugs, or what happened when the U.S. Patent Office started granting patents on human genes. And he's always on the lookout for economic principles at work in unexpected places, like the tactics comedians use to protect their intellectual property (a.k.a. jokes).
He's reported from Iceland on the dramatic crash of the country's budget airline, from Denmark on the global trade for human sperm, and from Germany on the country's (uncannily familiar) obsession with returning the things they buy online. He also produced Planet Money's 2020 Murrow-award-winning collaboration with the NPR Ed Desk, the show's audiobook rendition of the Great Gatsby, as well as collaborative episodes with Pro Publica, and Gimlet Media's How to Save A Planet.
Horowitz-Ghazi hails from Santa Fe, New Mexico, studied history at Reed College, and got his start in radio at Oregon Public Broadcasting. He was selected as a 2014 AIR New Voices Scholar and a 2019 Arthur F. Burns Fellow. He previously worked with Michel Martin's team at All Things Considered, where he produced breaking news and feature stories, led film coverage, and directed the live broadcast.
At All Things Considered, Horowitz-Ghazi reported on how a national clown scare affected professional clowns, who was behind of a wave of succulent poaching on the California coastline, what happens to a musician's legacy after they die, and why his hometown burns a giant human effigy every year. He also pitched and produced "Brave New Workers," a series of profiles on people adapting to the changing economy, and has interviewed coal miners, rock climbers, coyote hunters, porn stars, cowboys, truck drivers, drone pilots, Carrie Brownstein, Werner Herzog, and George R.R. Martin, among many others. In his free time, he enjoys riding bicycles, playing squash (middlingly), and sleeping out of doors.
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The now-defunct budget airline WOW got Iceland hooked on tourism. The island nation's economy was reshaped by the tourism boom, and WOW's bankruptcy is changing things again.
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Filmmaker Mads Brügger's new film, Cold Case Hammarskjöld, is a controversial investigation into the mysterious plane crash that killed U.N. General Secretary Dag Hammarskjöld over Zambia in 1961.
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We follow the founder of f*ckjerry and comedian Jim Mendrinos into the world of comedy. Where a whole series of informal sanctions are deployed to protect jokes from theft. -
Stealing jokes is as old as comedy itself and it has become increasingly rampant and profitable on Instagram. One social media campaign may be forcing a major Instagram account to change its behavior.
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Netflix's Black Mirror: Bandersnatch lets viewers make decisions for the main character. The publisher of theChoose Your Own Adventure book series is suing Netflix for trademark infringement.
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Drugs like K2 have been responsible for overdoses and spikes in emergency room visits in the U.S. Several of the formulas for these drugs came from the lab of a chemistry professor in South Carolina.
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Synthetic drugs like "Spice" and "K2" have helped jumpstart a revolution in the drug trade. -
Parkinson's Law says work expands to fill the time allotted. Goodhart's Law says you get what you measure. Has anyone ever tested these laws of the modern workplace? -
During coyote hunting derbies, contestants vie to kill more coyotes than their competitors. Wildlife activists believe the competitions are unethical, and are pushing to make them a thing of the past. -
California Fish and Wildlife agents are combating a rash of succulent poaching incidents on the state's coastline, apparently to satisfy a booming demand for the plants in Korean and Chinese markets.
