Alec Cowan
Producer, Soundside
About
Alec Cowan is a producer for Soundside. His interests have brought many eclectic stories to the program, and his segments gravitate toward history, technology, arts and culture, and the environment. Proud to be KUOW's unofficial "boat guy."
Prior to joining Soundside, Alec wore many hats at KUOW. He was a producer for The Record with Bill Radke and Primed seasons two and three . He also reported an episode of SoundQs detailing how prohibition forever changed Seattle policing and assisted with reporting a breakthrough cold case solved with the use of genetic genealogy.
Before joining KUOW Alec worked in NPR's Story Lab, where he helped pilot the Louder Than a Riot podcast, about hip-hop and mass incarceration, and assisted in producing a story on volunteerism in Iraq for Rough Translation. Originally from Grand Junction, Colorado, his roots in the Northwest begin in Eugene, where he studied English and philosophy at the University of Oregon and worked as a news reporter for NPR member station KLCC. He is likely neglecting his saxophone, growing book collection, and expanding personal project list in favor of boosting his online Xbox ranking.
Location: Seattle
Languages Spoken: English
Pronouns: he/him/his
Podcasts
Stories
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Politics
'Nobody believed that this would happen.' The war in Ukraine from Seattle
After weeks of signaling and buildup of troops and equipment, Russia has launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. In other words, Vladimir Putin has ordered likely the largest conventional military action in Europe since World War II. KUOW's Soundside heard from several Seattleites about their view of what's happening in Ukraine.
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Environment
A new federal strategy for managing and preventing wildfires
Last month the Biden Administration announced a 10 year, $50 billion investment in renewed forest management practices. The funding will focus on "fireshed" zones throughout the Western United States, which are forests at a greater risk of conflagration with close proximity to communities. What does this new strategy mean for Washington's forests?
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Government
'The Wild West on the water.' Finding makeshift housing on Puget Sound
It isn't hard to notice a derelict boat -- their bilges are dirty, their engines are smoking, or their mast may be missing. But when searching for shelter, older and dingier boats can be a lifeline for many.
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Arts & Life
Lift prices are up, and so are temperatures. Could this be the end of the ski bum?
In her early 20s, author Heather Hansman spent her days working the lift, bartering with pizza, and hitting the slopes as much as possible. She lived as a textbook "ski bum," a grifter addicted to the adrenaline of a perfect swish through powder.
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Technology
Algorithms constantly make hard decisions online. Can they ever be truly ethical?
What happens when a search engine runs into a question? Say, is it rude to accept a phone call in a meeting? Is 10% a bad tip? Or is climate change real? Using a lot of computing power, websites like Google give us answers to any question we ask within seconds. But how does an algorithm know where to direct us, especially for our thorniest of questions?
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Education
Wahkiakum School District sues WA over its education funding model
Wahkiakum County sits just north of the Columbia River on the Oregon border. It’s Washington’s smallest county, where the medium income sits just around $36,000 a year. If you go to school there, you’re learning in old buildings, oftentimes operating thanks to duct tape and chicken wire solutions.
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Environment
There's a seed shortage in WA. What does that mean for our beloved forests?
Nearly half of Washington state is forested. That's 22 million acres of douglas firs, red alders, western hemlock, and ponderosa pine, to name a few. But as wildfires grow in both size and regularity, do we have enough seeds for our forests to recover?
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Business
Tourism is booming in our small towns. But can locals afford to enjoy it?
This month we visited a few of our popular Washington tourist destinations. We wanted to know: how has the pandemic reshaped tourism? What changes has the pandemic, and tourism broadly, brought to some of our most beautiful places? Today, we break down what we learned and dive into one of the biggest themes we heard about: how booming tourism has made living in our small towns untenable.
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Could psychedelic mushrooms be used to treat depression in Washington?
Psilocybin, the active ingredient in “magic mushrooms” shows promise for treating depression and PTSD. A new bill in Olympia, if passed, would make this treatment available to Washingtonians under very specific circumstances.
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Environment
Washington loves its public lands — perhaps a little too much
There are 19.8 million acres of public land here in Washington. That's larger than nearly 10 U.S. states. How did we end up with so much public land?