Audio Documentaries

The APM Reports documentary unit, formerly American RadioWorks, produces programs about education, history, justice and more.

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September 1, 2007

Put to the Test

The effects of high-stakes testing on students, teachers, and schools.

August 2, 2007

Routes to Recovery

To mark the second anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, American RadioWorks teams up with Nick Spitzer of American Routes to find out how culture might save New Orleans.

August 1, 2007

Green Rush

From carbon offsets to biofuels, companies and investors are seeking riches in the fight against global warming. What happens when good deeds grapple with the realities of the free market?

May 12, 2007

The effects of mental illness are well documented. But until recently, there has been little said about the siblings of the mentally ill. Now researchers are starting to look at the "well-sibling" syndrome.

January 12, 2007

Imperial Washington

Explore the trappings of life in Congress, the pressure to raise campaign dollars and Washington's powerful world of lobbying.

December 12, 2006

Hearing America

A century ago, the first radio broadcasts sent music out into the air. Since then, music has dominated America's airwaves and it's been a cultural battleground.

December 12, 2006

Urban Shakespeare

A few "at risk" teens in Los Angeles are getting their first jobs, as working artists: studying Shakespeare and writing their own poetry and music, all while earning minimum wage.

November 12, 2006

Reports from a Warming Planet

The early signs of climate change are showing up across vastly differing landscapes: from melting outposts near the Arctic Circle to disappearing glaciers high in the Andes; from the rising water in the deltas of Bangladesh to the "sinking" atolls of the Pacific. Reports from a Warming Planet takes you to parts of the planet where global warming is already making changes to life and landscape, and demonstrates how climate change is no longer restricted to scientific modeling about the future. It's happening now.

October 12, 2006

Japan's Pop Power

To many people, global youth culture means rock and roll and other Western fashions. But for more and more young people across to world, the capital of pop culture is Tokyo. Over the past decade, Japanese video games, animation and comic books have caught fire in much of the world, including the United States.

September 12, 2006

The Sonic Memorial Project

Peabody-award winning documentary that chronicles the sounds and voices of the World Trade Center and its surrounding neighborhood.

September 12, 2006

Rewiring the Brain

A unique study of Romania's orphans reveals the profound effects of social deprivation on brain development.

August 12, 2006

Rebuilding Biloxi

Hurricane Katrina devastated the lives of thousands of Mississippi Gulf Coast residents. Rebuilding Biloxi tells the stories of several families in the coastal community of Biloxi, Miss., and their struggle to survive and then recover from the storm.

June 12, 2006

Power Trips: Congressional Staffers Share the Road

Public documents show that from 2000 through mid-2005, Capitol Hill staffers accepted nearly 17,000 free trips worth almost $30 million. Many of these trips clearly violate ethics rules designed to limit the abuse of power.

June 12, 2006

Vietnam and the Presidency

Four American presidents tried to end the conflict in Vietnam. The lessons they learned echo sharply today.

May 12, 2006

After Welfare

In August 1996, landmark legislation fulfilled the promise to "end welfare as we know it." Congress gave the states money to run their own programs and required them to move many welfare recipients into the workforce. Supporters declared it a new day, the beginning of self-sufficiency for poor families. Others warned the action would push women and children into the streets, perhaps by the millions.

April 12, 2006

Bankrupt

Americans are going broke in record numbers. In 2005 Congress overhauled the bankruptcy system to stem the tide of filings. What's behind the boom in going bust?

March 12, 2006

Logging On and Losing Out

Internet poker has taken America by storm. Three-quarters of high school and college kids are gambling on a regular basis. But adolescents are far more vulnerable to getting addicted to gambling than adults. And with Internet companies making millions from online gamblers, there's little incentive or legal controls to restrict youth gambling.

February 12, 2006

Unmasking Stalin

On February 25, 1956, former Kremlin leader Nikita Khrushchev revealed and denounced, for the first time in the history of the Soviet Union, the crimes of his predecessor, Joseph Stalin, dramatically shifting Soviet Russia's course, stirring a human rights movement, and opening the door to the eventual collapse of the USSR.

January 12, 2006

Intelligent Designs on Evolution

How a rival concept about the origins of life is defying the cornerstone of biology.

November 13, 2005

Las Vegas

Trace Las Vegas' evolution from a remote railroad town to a mobster metropolis, to its current incarnation as an adult-themed resort town that nearly two million people call home.

October 13, 2005

Power Trips: Pombo in the Gray

Tax law prohibits members of Congress from taking international trips paid for by private foundations, but Republican Richard Pombo may have done just that.

October 13, 2005

Finding Home

More than 20,000 foreign children are adopted by Americans every year. Most come from poor and troubled parts of the world, and a life in America offers new hope. But it also means separation from their birth culture. Finding Home: Fifty Years of International Adoption explores the pull of adoption across lives and borders.

September 13, 2005

No Place for a Woman

In the 1970s, women began breaking into male-dominated professions as never before. Women took jobs as police officers, lawyers and steelworkers. Across the country, the first women in male bastions faced a hostile reception. In the iron mines of northern Minnesota, women were harassed, threatened and assaulted. Their fight to keep their jobs broke new legal ground and helped change the workplace forever.

July 13, 2005

Power Trips: Chilled Travel

How has all the recent news about congressional travel changed the travel habits of those in Congress?

July 13, 2005

Married to the Military

The United States is making huge demands on its military people, the toughest since the Vietnam War. But most soldiers during Vietnam were young, single men. Today, in the all-volunteer military, about half of all service people are married with children, so the burdens of fighting these wars are shared back home.

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