Janet Saidi

About

Janet Saidi is an audio producer and assistant professor at NPR-affiliate KBIA public radio and the Missouri School of Journalism. Janet’s many and varied media projects are about building community through audio, journalism, and storytelling. She has written and produced pieces for NPR, PBS, the BBC, the Christian Science Monitor, and the Los Angeles Times. Her most recent projects include KBIA's new podcast, Cover Story with Stephanie Shonekan; she hosted KBIA’s live, national award-winning talk show The Check-In; and she has co-created two award-winning, collaboratively-produced series combining oral history with audio journalism, You Don’t Say and Missouri on Mic. In 2014 and 2016, Janet co-produced two journalism-on-the-stage theater productions with playwright Michelle Tyrene Johnson: Justice in the Embers, with Kansas City’s Living Room Theatre, and The Green Duck Lounge with MU Theatre. Janet began her public-media work at KPBS in San Diego, on a live, nightly talk show called The Lounge. While in California, Janet also helped produce the national PBS series “Remaking American Medicine” about healthcare in America, and worked as an editor at the Gay & Lesbian Times and Uptown Newsmagazine. As vice president for news at Kansas City Public Television, Janet led a team of multiplatform journalists to launch KCPT’s digital magazine FlatlandKC, and co-produced the Beyond Belief interfaith journalism project for AIR’s Localore “Finding America” series. Janet lived for several years in England, where she earned her master’s in Literature from University College, London. During the pandemic Janet began re-reading the novels of Jane Austen, which turned into a Substack newsletter and podcast, the Austen Connection. Ask her anything you want about Jane!