Jenna Weiss-Berman (born 1983) is a podcast producer and co-founder of Pineapple Street Media.[1] Formerly she was director of audio for BuzzFeed.[2]
Weiss-Berman is a native of Massachusetts and graduated from Oberlin College in 2005.[3]
After almost a decade working in public radio on such shows as The Moth, WNYC's Death, Sex and Money, and The Longform Podcast,[4] Weiss-Berman started the podcast department at BuzzFeed where she was "responsible for the ground-up development of the wildly successful company’s audio arm,"[5] creating shows like Another Round[6] and Women of the Hour with Lena Dunham.[7] While there she was responsible for every aspect of the podcast department from legal contracts, finding sponsorships and the content itself as a producer.[8]
In 2016, she left BuzzFeed to launch Pineapple Street Media, a Brooklyn-based full-service podcast production company, with her friend, Longform co-founder, Max Linsky.[9] Weiss-Berman has said that the goal was to be able to make podcasts for non-audio companies and the decision to launch Pineapple Street came after both her and Linksy turning down many such requests.[8]
Pineapple Street's early clients included The New York Times,[10][11] Lena Dunham's Lenny Letter and ad agency Wieden+Kennedy.[12] In the summer of 2016, Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign hired Pineapple Street to produce a podcast (the first ever for a presidential candidate).[8][13] Clinton and Linsky co-hosted the show, called With Her.[14]
Pineapple Street Media has partnered with brands like Coach, Nike, Morgan Stanley, Mailchimp, Mastercard and Google, and produced critically-acclaimed original series like Missing Richard Simmons, Running From COPS, The Clearing, The Catch and Kill Podcast with Ronan Farrow, Wind of Change, Back Issue and Welcome to Your Fantasy.[15]
In 2017, she was named one of Fast Company’s 100 Most Creative People in Business.[16]
Pineapple Street was sold to Entercom in 2019.[17]
Weiss-Berman currently sits on the advisory board of The Moth.[18]
Weiss-Berman was a winner of the Gracie Award Grand Award for Podcast in 2016,[19] for her collaboration with Lena Dunham on podcast Woman of the Hour, initially produced at BuzzFeed, now a Pineapple Street production.[20]
In 2020, Pineapple Street Media led all podcast companies with two Peabody Award nominations for The Catch and Kill Podcast with Ronan Farrow and Running From COPS.[21]
Weiss-Berman is married to writer Kira Garcia.[22]