Q&A With Lizzie O’Leary, host of Marketplace Weekend

Marketplace Weekend, hosted by Lizzie O'Leary, will air on NSPR Saturdays at 9 a.m. beginning Oct. 1. We recently spoke with Lizzie about what North State listeners can expect from her show, which brings you powerful discussions on economies both large and personal, at a pace that suits your weekend life. Here is an excerpt of our conversation.

General Manager Beth Lamberson: We're very pleased to bring your show to our listeners. Some people think well, we're just going to have kind of a rehash of the week, but your show is such a standalone piece. How did that happen for you that you sort of, first of all, were given the hosting duties and then really kind of took the reins?

O’Leary: Well a couple of things happened. I guess the first thing is, I came on to Marketplace about three years ago as a backup to Kai and a senior reporter, kind of off doing my own thing, the kind of big economic trend stories that we think about but often don't dig into. And then when we evolved this show, the idea was OK, so what's that thing that you sort of know about, but maybe can't put your finger on exactly? So maybe it's that you know that you haven't really gotten a raise in a long time, but you're not entirely sure what's going on behind that. So the idea behind the show was to take those personal kind of gut understandings and meld them together with big economic trends and then kind of how that plays out in your life.

The first time I heard you hosting a show, it was in December. I was driving through Wyoming, so there was lots of weather to contend with and I actually got delayed. I caught you on Wyoming Public Media and it was your incredible interviewwith Run the Jewels, and you did something so spectacular with the show as far as a combination of popular culture, hip hop, and money.

O’Leary: Well, thank you. That's one of my favorite interviews I think we've ever done, because I think when you think about, “Write a show about money, a show about economics,” like who's going to say, “Well let's talk to two rappers and figure out how they do this”? And they are such an interesting pair and really transparent and fun to talk to, and I think even the first thing I asked them, which wasn't even intended to go on the air was, why do you think you're on a business show? And so we started talking about what they do and how they do it and how the music business has changed. And they’re also really socially conscious. One’s black, one’s white and we talked a lot about race and how that has become a really signature part of what they do.

What do we have to look forward to with our listeners here in the North State?

O ‘Leary: I was thinking about California a lot actually when I knew that I was going to be talking to you, because we've been spending a lot of time looking at student debt and what it means and what it will mean. Obviously California has a remarkable public university system, but it has also had cuts to the public funding of universities, and that's one of the big sort of changes that brought about this increase in student debt that we've seen. So there's like $1.3 trillion held in student debt, 42 million borrowers. So you know states cut back, incomes stagnate. What does that mean? Well that means if you want to go to school, you end up taking out more money.  And so we've been spending a lot of time talking about that. Not just like what does it mean at the end of the month when you have to pay it, but the psychological effects or, you know, how you talk to your spouse about this stuff or even you know what does it mean for kind of who you see yourself as. One thing I would say about money and the way I think about it is, I think about money really as just a framing device. It's something that forces us to do stuff or make choices. I think people are scared of it because it sounds like a different language that we don't speak but it's not. It's just a window into sort of psychology. And so that's how we kind of look at the show.

What does the normal show sound like?

O’Leary: The normal show is a mix of what we call kind of cabinet franchises — things we tend to do every week, plus whatever we think is the most important stuff to look at that week. So we do something called the Marketplace Quiz, which I love. One of our brilliant young producers thought of, and the idea is to take someone who you wouldn't normally ask about money —Samantha Bee was on the show — and talk about how kind of work and money have shaped their lives. We have another regular segment that I love where we have kind of economic and personal finance-ish conversations with listeners. They're not, what do you do with your 401K? But, for example, we had a conversation after Prince died without a will. Do you have a will? Why? Why not? Do you have that conversation? How do you maybe push your parents to have that conversation or your children. So we try to look at things through what I don't know new and different lens but still stay true to the fact that this is a Marketplace show and we are going to look at the serious stuff behind the economy. We're just going to talk about it in a more know a fun way if that makes any sense.

This interview and individual answers have been excerpted.