Kenny Malone
Kenny Malone is a correspondent for NPR's Planet Money podcast. Before that, he was a reporter for WNYC's Only Human podcast. Before that, he was a reporter for Miami's WLRN. And before that, he was a reporter for his friend T.C.'s homemade newspaper, Neighborhood News.
Kenny's stories have investigated everything from abuse in Florida's assisted living facilities to health hackers building their own pancreas to the origins of seemingly made-up holidays like National Raisin Day. Or National Golf Day. Or National Splurge Day.
His work has won the National Edward R. Murrow Award for Use of Sound, the National Headliner Award, the Scripps Howard Award, and the Bronze Third Coast Festival Award. He studied mathematics at Xavier University in Cincinnati and proudly hails from Meadville, PA, where the zipper was invented.
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Famous basketball players usually charge more when their names appear on them. But what happened when an NBA All-Star tried to use his name to charge less?
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Four years ago, a Scottish teenager set out to do the impossible: cordon off a space for measured, civil conversation between people who believe different things — on the Internet! Now there are over 300,000 members of the Change My View subreddit. The founder talks about the surprising rules he had to implement in order to make the space work, and a researcher tells us who discovered a kind of agree-to-disagree inflection point by studying the group.
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Two weeks ago, Saudi Arabia announced it had closed its border and cut diplomatic ties with neighboring Qatar. Other Gulf countries joined in, and the tiny gas-rich monarchy became a pariah seemingly overnight. But tensions have been simmering for some time. To understand what's happening to Qatar, Planet Money traces the long, dramatic relationship between Saudi Arabia and Qatar, two brother monarchies.
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Professional sports generate a tremendous amount of money, but it's tricky to know exactly what part of sports generates that money. LeBron James unintentionally ran a nearly perfect economic experiment by unexpectedly leaving Cleveland and then, three years later, returning with almost no warning. A pair of economists have now used James' prodigal son data to look at the financial impact a single superstar can have on a local economy.
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Toys R Us has literally scrambled the jets trying to meet the demand of this year's break-out toy, handheld whirligig known as a "fidget spinner." Unlike other toy explosions like the Tickle Me Elmo or the Furby, the fidget spinner seemed to have hit without warning and without a brand. NPR's Planet Money set out to try and figure out where this thing came from and why it seemed to appear out of nowhere.
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Last month the U.S. Court of International Trade ruled on a question with millions of dollars at stake: Is the Snuggie a blanket with sleeves or a sleeved garment that looks like a blanket?
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How much is a tooth worth to the tooth fairy and has that price changed over time? This is a silly question of course, but the answer is serious. It gives us a way to understand how the costs of parenting have changed over time.
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Telling your parents you have mental health issues can be tough, even if you are a trained psychotherapist. Add in another culture and there's even more room for apprehension and misunderstanding.
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An by the Miami Herald raises questions about a Florida task force that busted a huge money-laundering ring. Did the unit help catch criminals, or just enrich two small law enforcement departments?
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Pro football players can earn tens of millions of dollars in a career. Some schools are now catering to current and former athletes to show them how best to manage their money after they stop playing.