Reveal

Overview

Reveal is a weekly investigative public radio show and podcast produced by the Center for Investigative Reporting (CIR) and the Public Radio Exchange (PRX). It combines original investigative reporting with narrative-driven storytelling, built around a single theme per episode, and is distributed to public radio stations nationwide and released as a podcast.

History

Reveal grew out of the Center for Investigative Reporting, which was co-founded in 1977 by journalists David Weir, Dan Noyes and Lowell Bergman in downtown Oakland, California, after Bergman and Weir's informal investigative-reporting unit inside Rolling Stone magazine dissolved. Bergman brought in Noyes, whom he had met through the "Arizona Project," a group investigation into the 1976 assassination of Arizona Republic reporter Don Bolles that also led to the creation of Investigative Reporters and Editors. CIR became the first nonprofit organization in the United States dedicated to investigative journalism.

Reveal itself began as a pilot in 2013, hosted by journalist Al Letson; the pilot won a Peabody Award, and the program moved into full weekly production in 2014 as public radio's first weekly hour-long show dedicated entirely to investigative reporting. Letson has continued to host Reveal since, and in 2025 also began hosting a companion interview podcast, More to the Story, also produced by CIR and PRX. In February 2024, CIR merged with the magazine Mother Jones, forming a combined nonprofit newsroom that now produces Mother Jones' magazine and website alongside Reveal, More to the Story, and CIR Studios documentary films.

Notable works

• 2017–2020 (litigation)After the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives declined to release aggregate data on guns traced back to law enforcement agencies, Reveal sued the ATF under the Freedom of Information Act on behalf of Trace reporter Alain Stephens. After three years of litigation, the agency produced the underlying data that would later support a major joint investigation.

• May 2024That data underpinned a partnership investigation by The Trace, CBS News and Reveal, which found that more than 52,000 guns once owned by police departments had been recovered at crime scenes since 2006, and that at least 140 law enforcement agencies had resold or traded in their used service weapons to dealers, who then resold them to the public.

• 2024–2025 (policy impact)The investigation prompted the Indianapolis and Minneapolis police departments to immediately stop reselling their guns. By January 2025, the Cincinnati, Columbus and Sacramento police departments and New Jersey's Monmouth County Sheriff's Office had also confirmed ending the practice, while seven additional agencies said they would review their policies. That same month, the ATF itself issued a formal report citing the investigation and urging law enforcement nationally to reconsider reselling used firearms.

• 2020 Gerald Loeb AwardHost Al Letson received the 2020 Gerald Loeb Award for Audio for the Reveal episode "Amazon: Behind the Smiles."