On Being

On Being is a public radio conversation and podcast, a Webby Award-winning website, publisher and public event convener. Hosted by Krista Tippett, it examines what it calls the, "animating questions at the center of human life: What does it mean to be human, and how do we want to live?"
Radio program and podcast.
Format.
"On Being" is an hour-long radio show and podcast, hosted by Krista Tippett.
Tippett has interviewed guests ranging from poets to physicists, doctors to historians, artists to activists. Her guests include the 14th Dalai Lama, Maya Angelou, Mohammed Fairouz, Desmond Tutu, Thich Nhat Hanh, Rosanne Cash, Wangari Maathai, Yo-Yo Ma, Paulo Coehlo, Brian Greene, John Polkinghorne, Jean Vanier, Joanna Macy, Sylvia Earle, and Elie Wiesel.
In 2006, "On Being" became the first national public radio show to offer unedited interviews alongside the produced radio show in their podcast and on their website.
History.
Krista Tippett pitched a series of pilots on religion, meaning, and ethics to Bill Buzenberg, then Vice President for News at Minnesota Public Radio/American Public Media, in the late 1990s. The program became Speaking of Faith, a monthly series in 2001 and a weekly national program distributed by American Public Media (APM) in 2003. In 2010, the show's name changed to "On Being". In 2013, Tippett left APM to start the non-profit production company, Krista Tippett Public Productions, which she described as "a social enterprise with a radio show at its heart".
As of July 2014, "On Being" aired on 334 public radio stations across the United States, and the "On Being" podcast reached a global audience of 1.5 million listeners a month. "On Being" was listed in the iTunes top ten podcasts of 2014. In 2016, "On Being" changed distributors from APM to the Public Radio Exchange.
Content.
The "Columbia Journalism Review" said of "On Being" and Tippett, "To listen to her show is to hear how intelligent and thoughtful religious people can be when they are allowed to be subjective and not merely regurgitate dogma." In 2008 the show produced a series of programs called "Repossessing Virtue", exploring the spiritual and moral aspects of the economic recession. Other series have included "Revealing Ramadan" and "Living Islam" and "The Civil Conversations Project." In 2014, "On Being" produced two radio specials. "Science on Human Frontiers" included interviews with Brian Greene, Natalie Batalha, S. James Gates, Sylvia Earle, and Esther Sternberg. Most recently "On Being" produced a special series on "The American Consciousness," a collection of live interviews at the Chautauqua Institution with Michel Martin, Richard Rodriguez, Imani Perry, and Nathan Schneider.
Social enterprise.
Krista Tippett Public Productions (KTPP) was founded in 2013 by Krista Tippett as a non-profit production company with a 4,000-square-foot studio and live event space on Loring Park in Minneapolis. KTPP managed the production and funding of the program, which is distributed by APM. In 2018, KTPP changed its name to The On Being Project. 
Other Podcasts from The On Being Project.
"On Being" is the flagship podcast for The On Being Project, but the organization has also produced other podcasts. These include "Becoming Wise", which is closely associated with Krista Tippett's 2016 book by the same name; "Creating Our Own Lives," which ran from 2016 to 2017; "Poetry Unbound"; "This Movie Changed Me"; and "Living the Questions".
The Civil Conversations Project.
In 2012, "On Being" began a series of interviews and live events which became the Civil Conversations Project. The initial four-part series was a collaboration of the Brookings Institution, the Humphrey School, and the John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics. The project grew out of a sentiment that Tippett heard from many Americans who felt that our "civic life is broken, that bipartisan consensus is inconceivable". Tippett says that "conduct in public spaces may be as important as the positions we take"; and "How do we walk in disagreement while keeping as much of our society intact as we can?"
The Civil Conversations Project has been described in southwestjournal.com as "an ever-evolving effort to help others host the kind of nuanced and empathetic discussions they hear on "On Being"", and a "lab for returning civility to civic life", with a website containing conversation starters, video of live events, and interviews. Tippett describes the program as about "equipping people, wherever they may live, to create new conversational spaces".
Harvard Law School has used resources from the Civil Conversations Project. In 2014, the Civil Conversations Project lead an international pilot program in places such as Northern Ireland and Jordan.