Bryant Park Project

The Bryant Park Project was a short-lived morning radio newsmagazine from National Public Radio. The show's name was derived from Bryant Park in New York City, which NPR's New York studios overlook. While the Bryant Park Project (a.k.a. "the BPP") was originally a working title, the show debuted with the name intact on October 1, 2007. The show was broadcast live from 7 to 9 a.m. Eastern time, Monday through Friday and, at its height, was carried by 13 NPR member stations, mostly in small markets. The Sirius Satellite Radio station NPR Now repeated the show (on tape unless breaking news necessitated live updates) from 10 a.m. to noon Eastern, 7 to 9 a.m. Pacific.

The show's host was Alison Stewart, previously of MTV News, ABC News and MSNBC, although Stewart went on maternity leave in April 2008. In her absence, the show was co-hosted by Rachel Martin, formerly the show's newscaster, and Mike Pesca, until Martin left the show on June 27, 2008 to take a position as White House correspondent for ABC News. The show's regular newscaster was Mark Garrison, although Korva Coleman often substituted from NPR's Washington bureau. The show's Executive Producer was Sharon Hoffman and the Supervising Senior Producer was Matt Martinez.

On July 14, 2008, the New York Times reported that NPR would be cancelling the Bryant Park Project as of July 25, 2008. Host Alison Stewart, who was absent on maternity leave, returned to host the final week of broadcasts.

The show was meant to appeal to a younger, less-traditional NPR audience. Recurring segments include a Monday morning sports wrap-up featuring Bill Wolff (Stewart's husband and a former producer at ESPN), political news discussions with Jim VandeHei from the blog The Politico, a Tuesday section on new music releases, and frequent interviews with various musicians and performers including Tegan and Sara, Peter Bjorn and John, Jill Sobule, and The Pipettes. Daily segments included "The Most" (a segment Stewart brought from her MSNBC show of the same name, presenting and discussing the most-read, -shared and -emailed stories from various online news sources) and "The Ramble" (a brief rundown of quirky news stories, read over a music loop taken from the song "In One Ear and Out the Other" by dance music trio Fujiya and Miyagi). News headlines were read at approximately ten and forty minutes past the hour, ten minutes later than the traditional top and bottom of the hour updates. The show also had an occasional segment called "Make Me Care" in which guests had 60 seconds to argue why a subject should matter to listeners. The tone was often informal compared to the more conventional content found in other NPR newsmagazines. It was distributed online via podcast and streaming audio, and also could be heard on Sirius Satellite Radio and on select NPR stations. The show also had a frequently updated blog.

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