Adrian Ma
Host, The Indicator from Planet Money
Adrian Ma is a host and reporter for NPR's The Indicator from Planet Money, a daily podcast that helps listeners make sense of our ever-changing economy.
Adrian covers a wide variety of topics through the lens of economics, business, labor, and the law. One week, he might be explaining the rise of AI-generated merchandise or the market for human cells. The next, he may explore the economic impact of banning affirmative action or the blurry legal line between creativity and theft.
His goal is to understand how economic forces shape our lives — for better and for worse. At times, that's meant riding shotgun with delivery gig workers or scaling a snow-covered construction site. Other times, it's meant spending days at a struggling restaurant or combing through data to pinpoint which banks aren't lending in Black neighborhoods.
He also enjoys coming up with fun ways to explain what's happening in the economy, like the time he wrote an audio drama about inflation.
Background
Before joining NPR in 2021, Adrian reported for public radio stations in Boston, Cleveland, and New York City. He's currently based in Washington D.C., though his reporting has occasionally taken him to places as far as Japan and China.
In recent years, his work has been recognized with a few honors. In 2019, he received his first National Edward R. Murrow Award for a story about the Chinese government buying out an American softball team. In 2021, he received a Public Media Journalists Association Award for coverage of racial justice protests in Boston. In 2022, he received a second National Edward R. Murrow Award for a feature about what it takes to close a restaurant. And in 2023, he was part of a team that received a regional Murrow Award for investigating racial disparities in Boston's home lending market.
Adrian became interested in journalism while studying media law at the University of Maryland School of Law. Later, while working for a federal judge in Baltimore, he decided to roll the dice and change careers. In 2016, he obtained a master's degree in journalism from Columbia University. And since then, he has felt lucky to work in a field where he has the privilege and responsibility to ask questions, to better understand our world — and help others understand it, too.
Contact
Have a question, story or tip you'd like Adrian to look into? Here's how to get in touch.
You can reach him on social media via X or LinkedIn. The Indicator's general inbox is indicator@npr.org. Anonymous news tips can be sent here.
