Alexi Horowitz-Ghazi
Alexi Horowitz-Ghazi reports and produces for Planet Money, telling stories that creatively explore and explain the workings of the global economy. He's a sucker for a good supply chain mystery — from toilet paper to foster puppies to specialty pastas. He's drawn to tales of unintended consequences, like the time a well-intentioned chemistry professor unwittingly helped unleash a global market for synthetic drugs, or what happened when the U.S. Patent Office started granting patents on human genes. And he's always on the lookout for economic principles at work in unexpected places, like the tactics comedians use to protect their intellectual property (a.k.a. jokes).
He's reported from Iceland on the dramatic crash of the country's budget airline, from Denmark on the global trade for human sperm, and from Germany on the country's (uncannily familiar) obsession with returning the things they buy online. He also produced Planet Money's 2020 Murrow-award-winning collaboration with the NPR Ed Desk, the show's audiobook rendition of the Great Gatsby, as well as collaborative episodes with Pro Publica, and Gimlet Media's How to Save A Planet.
Horowitz-Ghazi hails from Santa Fe, New Mexico, studied history at Reed College, and got his start in radio at Oregon Public Broadcasting. He was selected as a 2014 AIR New Voices Scholar and a 2019 Arthur F. Burns Fellow. He previously worked with Michel Martin's team at All Things Considered, where he produced breaking news and feature stories, led film coverage, and directed the live broadcast.
At All Things Considered, Horowitz-Ghazi reported on how a national clown scare affected professional clowns, who was behind of a wave of succulent poaching on the California coastline, what happens to a musician's legacy after they die, and why his hometown burns a giant human effigy every year. He also pitched and produced "Brave New Workers," a series of profiles on people adapting to the changing economy, and has interviewed coal miners, rock climbers, coyote hunters, porn stars, cowboys, truck drivers, drone pilots, Carrie Brownstein, Werner Herzog, and George R.R. Martin, among many others. In his free time, he enjoys riding bicycles, playing squash (middlingly), and sleeping out of doors.
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By the mid-2000s, an estimated 20% of the human genome had been turned into intellectual property. NPR shares the story of how the Supreme Court answered the question: Who do genes belong to?
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Some of the U.S. animal shelters have reported having all their dogs fostered during the quarantine. But it is not just that the pandemic made people want pets more — a dog supply chain has broken.
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Why are supermarkets running out of toilet paper? It's partly the same psychology behind a bank run — and partly about bottlenecks in supply chains.
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The Paramount Consent Decrees were enacted more than 70 years ago to keep Hollywood studios from monopolizing film distribution. Now the Department of Justice has filed to terminate them.
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Sperm banking has become a lucrative international business. But until the 1980s, it was a niche industry.
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The rise of online retail has meant the rise of online returns. One country where that is particularly apparent is Germany. Some companies there are trying to find ways to cut down on the costs.
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The now-defunct budget airline WOW got Iceland hooked on tourism. The island nation's economy was reshaped by the tourism boom, and WOW's bankruptcy is changing things again.
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Filmmaker Mads Brügger's new film, Cold Case Hammarskjöld, is a controversial investigation into the mysterious plane crash that killed U.N. General Secretary Dag Hammarskjöld over Zambia in 1961.
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Stealing jokes is as old as comedy itself and it has become increasingly rampant and profitable on Instagram. One social media campaign may be forcing a major Instagram account to change its behavior.
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Netflix's Black Mirror: Bandersnatch lets viewers make decisions for the main character. The publisher of theChoose Your Own Adventure book series is suing Netflix for trademark infringement.