Up First is a daily news podcast by the American media organization NPR, which releases an episode every weekday at 6:30 a.m.

The podcast was launched on April 5, 2017, in order to showcase the most prominent stories of the day in a digestible format,[3] and giving hosts the opportunity to discuss current news items with experts.

Beginning on January 9, 2022, the podcast expanded to a Sunday edition now hosted by Ayesha Rascoe offering extended content in each episode to provide context behind current headlines.

For many people, Morning Edition was inaccessible due to its length or the time in which it aired.

[5] For this reason, Up First was introduced to cater to the "more than three-fourths of NPR podcast listeners [who] say they are “definitely” interested in short, daily audio news updates.