Hello again,

As we approach the Thanksgiving holiday, let me start by thanking you for bringing On Point to your listeners. Thanks also to all of you who attended the On Point breakfast that Meghna and I hosted at this year’s Public Radio Content Conference in New Orleans. It was great to meet so many of you in person and hear how On Point is connecting with your audiences. The audience is at the heart of everything we do — and Meghna and I spoke about how we place a premium on reflecting the lived experiences of our listeners and the role of authentic audience engagement in our journalism.

Six months into the pandemic, in October 2020, we did an episode about how the pandemic-induced recession was particularly affecting women. At the time it had been dubbed a she-cession. Experts were saying that a decade’s worth of economic advancement for women in the workforce had been lost. We asked listeners to call into our voicemail line with their stories of how the she-cession had affected them, and they responded in abundance. Now, a recent study by Harvard labor economist Claudia Goldin reveals that the economic impact of the recession on women was not as clear-cut as the buzzword made it out to be. We have been able to go back to those listeners who shared their she-cession experiences with us to, effectively, report the story for 2022. Just before I sat down to write this letter, On Point’s Senior Editor, Dorey Scheimer, was sharing some of their stories with me, including a heartwarming tale from a woman who was really struggling last time we spoke with her. I know this show will be compelling because our listeners helped make it that way.

We love hearing from the audience, but asked ourselves if phone calls and voicemails felt a bit too old school, especially for millennial and Gen Z listeners? So we worked with the folks at VoxPop to develop a custom On Point app that alerts listeners when we need their help. After many tweaks and tests the likes of which would make Boeing proud, I’m delighted to say the On Point app is finally ready and fans are downloading it from the Apple App Store and Google Play. The app makes it easy for people to record with just the click of a button and then share their story with us. I’m excited to see how it engages audiences beyond the daily show in a way that contributes to it.

We’re going to be using the app to invite listeners to share their stories for our upcoming series. It’s on the topic of trust and is a five-parter rolling out Monday through Friday next week (Nov. 28 – Dec. 2). Trust is a bond that holds everything from families to entire nations together but it seems like mistrust is everywhere from social media to politics to familial relationships.

Essential Trust: What Trust Is, Why We Need It, and What Happens When It’s Lost will explore how trust is created in the neural networks of an individual human brain, and then scaled up to the trust we have in people, institutions and societies at large. We’ll investigate what makes our capacity to trust uniquely precious, uniquely human, and worthy of our protection. We’ll also make the series available as a stand-alone offering in the new year. I think you’ll find it true to our mission to make sense of the world – together.

Jonathan Dyer
Executive Producer, On Point