Up First is a daily news podcast by the American media organization NPR, which releases an episode every weekday at 6am ET. Up First gives a brief overview of each news item, unlike some of their other popular news podcasts which provide a deep exploration of each story. The podcast was launched on April 5, 2017 in order to showcase the most prominent stories of the day in a digestible format. Up First is hosted by Rachel Martin, Noel King, David Greene, and Steve Inskeep, who discuss news items with experts.
Format
When Up First launched, it was intended to be a spin off of the popular NPR show Morning Edition, a morning news show that runs for several hours each weekday on NPR. For many people, Morning Edition was inaccessible due to its length or the time in which it aired. For this reason, Up First was introduced to cater to the "more than three-fourths of NPR podcast listeners say they are “definitely” interested in short, daily audio news updates." Up First was NPR's solution to delivering the most broad overview of the show for the day, as many fans of Morning Edition didn't have the hours to dedicate to listening to the long show. After Morning Edition first goeslive at 5 am ET, NPR takes its first 10 minutes or so with Rachel Martin, David Greene, and Steve Inskeep and edits that into the show that many know best as Up First. When the Morning Edition broadcast picks up again at 7 am ET, the first ten minutes of the broadcast are replaced with something new to keep the information fresh and not repetitive.
Though Up First is often compared to The New York Times' daily news podcast The Daily, the two podcasts have differences in how they are formatted. The Daily, a 20-25 minute podcast, favors an in-depth look at a single story. Meanwhile, NPR's Up Firstclocks in at around 10 minutes each day trying to make the days biggest news stories as accessible and digestible as possible. That being said, polls and critics have been shown to favor The Daily over Up First. Up First is available to listen to on the NPR website, NPR One, and anywhere else NPR podcasts are posted.
