New VP will lead Marketplace enterprise, including broadcast, digital and podcast teams in the U.S. and internationally

Today, Marketplace will announce Neal Scarbrough as their new Vice President and General Manager. Scarbrough will oversee a team of broadcast and digital journalists, editors and producers across radio and on demand in Los Angeles, New York, Washington, London and Shanghai.

“We are excited for Neal to come on board as Marketplace’s new Vice President and General Manager. He has an extensive background in media, broadcast journalism and a strong track record when it comes to innovation, program development and building audiences,” said Dave Kansas, President of American Public Media. “In addition, Neal is a proven culture leader, with a deep devotion to diversity and inclusion. We are excited to have him joining the APM leadership team and look forward to adding his gifts and talents to all that we do at Marketplace and APM.”

“What we thought we knew about our economy changes every day, and Marketplace has established a gold standard using interviews and storytelling to make real sense of it to real people,” said Scarbrough. “It’s a big win for me to be able to work with such a dynamic collection of talent, producers and editors. Our job is to package this essential information for new audiences in new places and to keep introducing our followers to the emerging voices that are shaping our ever-changing economy.”

Scarbrough joins Marketplace from FOX Sports, where he served as Vice President and Executive Editor since 2016.  At FOX Sports, he supervised content, coached talent and maintained editorial oversight across FOX’s national sports networks.  Scarbrough also was the founding co-chair of the FOX Sports Inclusion Council, where his team addressed programming, inclusion and hiring initiatives for the organization. Among its accomplishments, the Inclusion Council worked to improve representation across the company and launched FOX Sports VOICES, a series of specials showcasing diverse athletes uplifting their communities. 

Scarbrough has risen through the ranks as a journalist and has held many leadership positions, including executive producer, operations chief, news director, sports editor and digital general manager. He directed broadcast operations for the New England Sports Network, where he oversaw the automation of two studios and control rooms. His team also pioneered full-game and event coverage via cellular networks. As Senior Executive Producer at Aljazeera America, he built and led the news network’s sports unit, including the development of original programming. He also served as Vice President of Digital Media for Comcast’s Versus Sports Network, where his team was the first to stream live daily coverage of the Tour de France. 

Scarbrough was part of the Denver Post team that won the Pulitzer Prize in 2000 for its coverage of the Columbine tragedy. He also earned the Online Journalism Award for General Excellence when he was editor-in-chief at ESPN.com in 2003.

Scarbrough, who earned a Bachelor of Science in Journalism at the University of Colorado Boulder, will begin his role at Marketplace in late September-early October.

Hopefully most of you are beating the heat and the rain this summer. Hard not to correlate a changing climate with all the unusual hot weather and flooding we’re seeing (shameless plug for Molly Wood’s ongoing climate series, “How We Survive”).

But in all seriousness, fingers crossed you’ve all had a little bit of summer fun. This is what we’ve been working on at Marketplace:

Bringing “Marketplace Minute” to public media audiences
As we announced a couple weeks ago, we’re making “Marketplace Minute” available to you and your audiences. Twice daily, this one-minute module brings important economic content and context to audiences in Marketplace’s signature accessible style. Marketplace reporters will write and produce the one-minute segments, with key voices including Nova Safo, Nancy Marshall-Genzer, Meghan McCarty Carino and Justin Ho.

“Marketplace Minute” will be available at no extra cost to current Marketplace affiliates and will be available starting Aug. 16. More information will be available closer to the launch date, but in the meantime if you have any questions, do not hesitate to reach out to your station relations representative.

This thing we used to call employment…
What happened to the good American job? The kind where you work for one company for years and get things like health insurance, paid sick days and at least minimum wage. Today, a growing number of companies argue that they’ve come up with something new and better: a gig economy where workers are independent contractors who own their own businesses and get more flexibility, but don’t get the traditional protections that come with being an employee.

In this one-hour special from Marketplace, the team from “The Uncertain Hour” explores the long history and controversial future of the gig economy by turning to a decidedly low-tech example: janitorial companies that rely on an army of independent contractors. We dive in to the story of one of these janitors, a man named Jerry Vazquez.

Like many Americans, Jerry always dreamed of working for himself. So when he saw a notice in the PennySaver saying he could start his own business for $950 down, he decided to go all in. He bought a janitorial franchise with a company called Jan-Pro. But he says Jan-Pro set his rates, directed his work, made him wear a uniform and set his schedule. Soon, Jerry began feeling like he didn’t have much control over a business that he supposedly owned — and he was earning less than minimum wage doing a dirty job. Eventually, Jerry decided it was time to fight back. He and some of his fellow Jan-Pro franchisees — most immigrants or people of color — sued the company.

“The Uncertain Hour” will go deep into the long and strange battle over who deserves worker protections and who is excluded — a struggle that connects to power, race and important questions about what companies owe the people whose labor they rely on.

This station special will be available from Aug. 25 to Oct. 31. Subscribe on Content Depot now.

“One final note on the way out”
Nicole Childers, who was the executive producer of “Marketplace Morning Report,” has moved on to a very exciting role at NBC. Meredith Garretson will be the interim senior producer for the show; she has been with the team for about two years. As usual, if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out to your station representatives!

Thank you,
Marketplace leadership

A twice-daily weekday :59 economic update module from Marketplace 

Dear colleagues –  

I have some exciting news. After successfully launching Marketplace Minute with Westwood One (also known as Cumulus Podcast Network) this past year, we’re now making it available for public radio stations as well. The public radio network continues to be our priority and core business, and we’re excited to be able to provide even more high-quality Marketplace content for your audiences, adding to our existing portfolio of Marketplace programs. 

Twice daily, this one-minute module brings important economic content and context to audiences. Stories will focus on providing up-to-the-moment economic news in a quick, digestible format in Marketplace’s signature accessible style. Marketplace reporters will write and produce the segments, along with other members of the Marketplace editorial team as determined by the news of the day. Familiar to public radio audiences, key voices of the show include Nova Safo, Meghan McCarty Carino and Justin Ho. 

Marketplace Minute will be available at no extra cost to current Marketplace affiliates and will be available starting on August 16, 2021. More information will be available closer to the launch date, but in the meantime if you have any questions do not hesitate to reach out to your station relations representative.  

Best, 

Chandra Kavati 
Vice President of Distribution and Underwriting, American Public Media 

FAQ 

Q: Where is the best place in my schedule for Marketplace Minute? 
A: The Marketplace Minute economic update is an ideal module to place in All Things Considered. Utilize the music beds in the clock to insert this :59 weekday module.  

AIR WINDOWS:  

• Midday: 11:30 a.m. – 2:59 p.m. ET 
• Closing Bell: 5:30 – 11:59 p.m. ET 

Q: Do I have to pay an additional fee for my station to carry Marketplace Minute? 
A: Marketplace Minute is available for Marketplace affiliates at no additional cost. 

Q: Who will be hosting the module? 
A: Key voices of the show include established Marketplace voices – Nova Safo, Meghan McCarty and Justin Ho. 

Q: Is Marketplace Minute carried on a commercial station in my market? 
A: There are commercial AM stations throughout the country that carry it, predominately between the hours of 10pm-4AM EST. During Prime-time NFL, the minute also currently airs on game nights (M, Th, Su) between 8pm-1am EST (metro and rural stations). At this time, this makes the versions available on public radio stations the earliest broadcast airings occurring throughout the country; scheduling is subject to changes. If you have questions about your specific market, please reach out to your station relations representative.

Q: How is this unique from (or the same as) the commercial Marketplace Minute? 
A: The commercial Marketplace Minute is a few seconds longer than the public radio version and has a morning feed in addition to the midday and closing bell feeds. The commercial version also has one additional ‘story’ or headline, which was trimmed to fit the public radio clock. 

Q: Can I also air the morning version of Marketplace Minute that’s available on commercial radio?  
A:  The morning version of Marketplace Minute is not available to Public Radio given Marketplace Morning Report’s six daily feeds starting at 5:51 a.m. ET through 10:51 a.m. ET. 

Q: Do my Marketplace fees contribute to the program’s production? 
A: Public radio fees do not pay for the production of this product. Marketplace Minute is a co-production between APM and Westwood One, also known as Cumulus Podcast Network, and is offered to APM affiliates as part of our agreement. 

Marketplace has launched and new-and-improved website that serves as a digital ecosystem for users.

Stations will benefit a new module that allows users to quickly and easily find Marketplace programs on their local stations.

This new online ecosystem reinforces a multi-platform mentality by highlighting Marketplace’s different content offerings, inclusive of radio broadcasts, podcasts and original digital reporting.

Along with a more modern look and improved functionality, the new site better articulates the Marketplace identity and forward-thinking approach to storytelling.

We encourage you to tour the new site and let us know what you think!

Now through April 25, Marketplace is reporting on how U.S. drug policies enacted during the crack epidemic 30 years ago continue to impact the opioid epidemic today.

The third season of the Marketplace Wealth & Poverty Desk podcast, The Uncertain Hour, explores the drug crisis, but your audiences will hear radio-only feature stories, excerpts and interviews on Marketplace broadcasts through Thursday, April 25, and  Marketplace Morning Report broadcasts each Friday through April 19.

Here’s what your audiences will hear on our evening broadcasts, in addition to the day’s economic news and numbers from Kai:

• Thursday, April 4: Profile of Bucky Culbertson (Caitlin Esch)

You can trace the booms and busts of Appalachian Virginia through one man’s career. Bucky Culbertson has worked in all the region’s defining industries: coal, lumber, and finally drug enforcement.

Wise County, in the Appalachian Mountains of Virginia, has some of the highest prescription opioid rates in the country. In 2015, one small town had five prescriptions for every man, woman and child.

These days, Bucky builds cases against low-level street dealers, and sometimes, takes down a big fish – like the doctor who wrote 64,000 prescriptions, many to the area’s top drug dealers. But as pain pills become harder to buy on the street, new drugs move in to fill the void – opioids like heroin and fentanyl and stimulants like methamphetamine. We’ll get to know Wise through one man and his career trajectory.

• Thursday, April 11: Wise Works (Caitlin Esch)

If you drive around Wise County, you’ll see people mowing the lawn in front of the courthouse, painting lines on the little league field, or working the front desk at the local community college library. These are not paid employees. They’re working off drug charges. Wise County is sick of sticking people in jail for low-level drug offenses, costing $30 per day, per inmate.

For the past 15 years, Wise has been dealing with the opioid epidemic largely through the criminal justice system. The jail population has more than doubled and spending on the jail has tripled, even as the county’s overall population (and tax base) has declined. The county’s defining industry, coal, now pays just one-tenth the taxes it once did to the county. Schools have been consolidated and property tax raised.

All of this has gotten Wise thinking of creative ways to save money. Wise Works is a program where people convicted of low-level drug felonies work off their charges instead of sitting in jail “eating Twinkies,” as the Commonwealth’s Attorney puts it. It might seem lenient compared to a two-year jail sentence, but it’s still punitive. Participants work for hundreds – even thousands – of hours without pay. They pay hundreds of dollars in court fines and fees, they lose their license and they have to plead guilty to felony charges. How’s this approach working out?

• Thursday, April 18: Building a rehab clinic (Caitlin Esch) – TENTATIVE

Everyone in Wise County seems to agree – you cannot jail your way out of a drug epidemic. But what do you do instead?

Paula Hill Collins and Teresa Tyson are registered nurses and best friends since eighth grade. They drive a mobile health “wagon” (really an RV) through the hollers of Appalachian Virginia to bring healthcare to rural people who do not have health insurance.

For the past year and a half, they’ve been struggling to open an addiction clinic, so that they can treat the overwhelming physical and mental health issues they’re seeing in hundreds of patients. But they’ve run into every roadblock imaginable. This feature follows their triumphs and failures treating drug users.

• Thursday, April 25: Profile of Joey (Caitlin Esch)

Joey Ballard represents what happened to Wise County when pain pills flooded it in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Joey was just finishing high school, driving around with friends, hanging out at Wal-Mart, occasionally smoking pot. Suddenly, pain pills were everywhere, and he gave them a try. He liked them a lot. Joey ended up marrying the stepdaughter of a local OxyContin dealer and for much of the next 15 years, he was using drugs and selling on the side.

Then, at the age of 34, Joey decided he had to quit. So, he left Wise County and moved in with his mother across the border in Tennessee. He found a job, met a girlfriend and bought a new used car. But can he manage to stay sober?

We caught up with Joey several months later at the county courthouse. He was there to plead guilty to some misdemeanors. He had returned to Wise County and had relapsed. This time, it was methamphetamine. Meth has become the drug of choice in a lot of small rural towns.

This profile looks at Wise through the eyes of Joey Ballard and explains how pain pills tore this county apart. And how once an epidemic starts, it’s hard it is to recover.

Audiences will also hear stories about the drug crisis Fridays through April 19 on Marketplace Morning Report.

We’re excited to share this highly relevant reporting on the drug crisis with your audiences. It offers new opportunities to cross-promote your Marketplace broadcasts and your local reporting on drug use, policies and campaigns.

Contact your Station Representative for more information, including:

• A list of officials and agencies featured in the stories.
• Photos and videos from the series.
• A heat map from APM Research Lab, with opioid prescriptions by county.
• The regions with the most compelling opioid data, from D.C. to L.A.