Tune into spirited debate, local stories, and insightful analyses with The Codcast.
Hosted each week by a CommonWealth Beacon reporter, the half-hour policy podcast delves into the heart of Massachusetts’s most pressing and intriguing topics.
Hear newsmakers, historians, and policy experts tackle statewide housing struggles, immigration policies, little-known histories, surprising political fights, and even take to the sea to visit rising offshore wind turbines.
Subscribe
Follow the weekly podcast on iTunes, Spotify, SoundCloud, or anywhere else you get your podcasts. New episodes drop every Monday.
Latest Episode
‘Forewarned is forearmed’ on housing voucher cuts
This week on The Codcast, CommonWealth Beacon reporter Jennifer Smith is joined by Kenzie Bok, head of the Boston Housing Authority, to discuss the threat of President Trump’s budget on rental assistance spending.
Listen now.How does public media survive threats from inside and out?
CommonWealth Beacon reporter Jennifer Smith is joined by Margaret Low, CEO of WBUR, to discuss the role of NPR in the news ecosystem, defending journalistic institutions and values while upholding rigorous standards, and the upcoming WBUR Festival.
Listen now.‘Always been a free market guy’: Mike Kennealy talks running for governor and being a Republican in Mass.
This week on The Codcast, CommonWealth Beacon reporter Gintautas Dumcius talks with gubernatorial hopeful Mike Kennealy about running as Republican against Gov. Maura Healey, his platform, and his history in the Baker administration.
Listen now.How race and immigration status limit health care access
This week on The Codcast, John McDonough of the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health and Paul Hattis of the Lown Institute are joined by Tiffany Joseph, assistant professor of sociology and international affairs at Northeastern University, to discuss her new book, ‘Not All In: Race, Immigration, and Healthcare Exclusion in the Age of Obamacare.’
Listen now.No man is an island: The collective climate challenge of coastal Massachusetts
This episode of the Codcast is a recording of a live event that took place April 30 in Provincetown, Mass., co-moderated by CommonWealth Beacon reporter Jennifer Smith and Eve Zuckoff of CAI (the Cape and Islands NPR station). Together with a panel of conservation, planning, and community development experts, they discussed what it means to live and plan responsibly on the Cape and Islands, understanding the realities of climate change and the housing crunch as a collective crisis.
Listen now.UMass Pres. Meehan on higher ed crisis response
CommonWealth Beacon reporter Jennifer Smith is joined by Marty Meehan, president of the University of Massachusetts system, to discuss UMass’s work in climate technology and its response to the federal government’s attacks on higher education.
Listen now.The stakes of Western Mass. transit gaps
CommonWealth Beacon reporter Jennifer Smith is joined by state Rep. Lindsay Sabadosa of the First Hampshire district and Laura Sylvester, public policy manager at the Food Bank of Western Massachusetts, to discuss transportation challenges in Western Massachusetts and how they connect with other policy areas.
Listen now.Managed retreat: not if, but when?
CommonWealth Beacon reporter Jennifer Smith is joined by Kristin Uiterwyk, director of the Urban Harbors Institute at UMass Boston, and Chris Krahforst, Director of Climate Adaptation and Conservation for the town of Hull, to discuss managed retreat in Massachusetts coastal communities threatened by rising waters and shrinking sands.
Listen now.Sec. Santiago on improving veterans services
CommonWealth Beacon reporter Jennifer Smith is joined by Jon Santiago, Secretary of the Massachusetts Executive Office of Veterans Services, to discuss how the now two-year-old office is progressing, advances at the Commonwealth’s Veterans Homes, how it is responding to threats from Washington, and what work he’s excited about for the future.
Listen now.Primary care physicians organizing union at Mass General Brigham
This week on The Codcast, John McDonough of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Paul Hattis of the Lown Institute talk to Michael Barnett, who is both a primary care physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and a professor of health policy at the T.H. Chan School, about the ongoing effort to unionize PCPs across the Mass General Brigham system.
Listen now.Sec. Augustus on housing policy base hits
CommonWealth Beacon reporter Jennifer Smith sits down with Ed Augustus, Secretary of the Massachusetts Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities, to discuss how federal policy changes threaten state housing goals, the Commonwealth’s response, the tools it is using to meet those goals, and much more.
Listen now.The data purge domino effect
CommonWealth Beacon reporter Jennifer Smith is joined by Ariel Beccia, an instructor of epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, to discuss the Trump administration’s purges of health-related government data, how these and other data purges ripple through society, and researchers’ efforts to respond.
Listen now.Something went wrong. Please refresh the page and/or try again.