As the election season hits a fever pitch, award-winning journalist Farai Chideya is debuting a new limited-audio series “Our Body Politic” on September 25. The series is being created and syndicated by public radio stations KPCC, KCRW, and KQED as part of the California Regional News Hub collaboration, a consortium of NPR member stations across California committed to incubating and airing programs that reflect the diversity of the state and country. It will be produced by the Peabody Award-nominated team at Lantigua Williams & Co.
“Our Body Politic” will be broadcast on KPCC, KCRW, KQED and other partnering stations across California and beyond. The show will also be made available as an on-demand podcast, available on NPR One, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to the trailer here.
In a political media landscape dominated by white men, “Our Body Politic” will be a source of news by and for Black women and women of color. The weekly hour-long show will examine the critical role Black women and women of color play in shaping the upcoming presidential election, while chronicling how they’re working to reframe and rebuild America while finding higher ground to lead the country.
Chideya will engage and feature Black women and women of color from around the country, including prominent politicians, leading journalists, and influential entertainers, as well as “everyday experts” who will provide a window into what’s happening in their lives, regions and states. In addition, Errin Haines, editor-at-large of The 19th* — a new newsroom at the intersection of gender, politics and policy — will be a regular contributor to the show’s political coverage.
“This is our time to vote, to live, to thrive amid the chaos of America,” says Chideya. “People are in such deep pain but also filled with passion. Black women and women of color disproportionately do the unpaid civic labor of standing up for rights that benefit us all –– full and fair voting rights; equitable housing policy; desegregation of workplaces. Women of color come from many different races, income brackets, cultural and religious backgrounds, as well as different political party affiliations. We are not an afterthought in politics, but a key driver of the future of this nation”
“Our Body Politic” will utilize a proprietary technology called SPEAK, a tool which allows listeners to call in and share their thoughts and experiences about our show’s topics. SPEAK’s analysis process will allow us to hear our listeners at scale and with nuance — providing our teams with unique insight into our audience.
Farai Chideya’s own journey has taken her to 30 countries, 49 states, and to cover every Presidential election since 1996. Chideya has brought her analysis and reporting to a variety of news outlets including ABC News, FiveThirtyEight, CNN, Newsweek, and the Intercept. She has worked both behind the scenes and in public forums on questions of media equity — the ways in which media can serve rural and urban Americans; people of all races and national backgrounds, and gender — for the health of civil society. Her most recent book, “The Episodic Career,” is about how we must be psychologically self-employed in order to pivot, grow, earn and thrive. On camera and on the air, she talks on a variety of broadcast outlets about politics, demographics and cultural analysis.
AIRDATES:
KPCC: Saturdays, 4:00pm from 9/26/2020 (KPCC.org / 83.3 FM)
KQED Saturdays, 6:00pm from 9/26/2020 (KQED.org / 88.5 FM)
KCRW: Sundays, 9:00am from 9/27/2020 (KCRW.com / 89.9 FM)
For more information, visit our-body-politic.simplecast.com.