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John O'Brien

Senior Producer, All Things Considered

About

John O’Brien is KUOW's All Things Considered Senior Producer. He spends his days setting up interviews with newsmakers on subjects from politics and public health to arts and culture. John learned to make radio starting in 2006 as an intern on KUOW’s The Conversation with Ross Reynolds.

Location: Seattle

Languages: English

Pronouns: he/him

Podcasts

Stories

  • caption: KUOW's Ask a Transgender Person event at the Youngstown Cultural Arts Center

    'When do we get past the starting point?' Ask a transgender person

    Transgender people are coming out (to welcome and rejection) more now than ever. We learn something about their experiences in news of a looming military service ban, from prominent transgender celebrities, TV shows and movies, but many of us don’t have personal connections with transgender people.

  • What would Frederick Law Olmsted do? The future of public spaces in Seattle

    t’s an exciting time to catch up on and get involved in envisioning the great public spaces that will help sustain our growing region. KUOW, The Seattle Public Library and Seattle’s Office of Planning and Community Development hosted this conversation with national and local experts to help the community at-large better understand the issues and opportunities we face. KUOW’s Posey Gruener moderated the discussion. The speakers include:

  • Seattle author Claire Dederer's midlife reckoning

    Author Claire Dederer was 44-years-old and living a successful life — literary accomplishment, comfortable marriage, family and home — when something caught up to her.

  • 'Weird things keep happening:' What you need to know about the crowd and the core

    Yes, you were promised a jet pack. Your disappointment around that may still sting, or you may be more concerned about global warming, or a robot taking your job, or finding affordable housing. Or you might be reasonably concerned that the digital revolution will leave you somewhere on the global trash heap of history.

  • More useless research and crazy ideas, please

    In 1939 the influential American education reformer Abraham Flexner published an essay in Harper’s Magazine titled “The Usefulness of Useless Knowledge.” In it he promoted the well-funded, free pursuit of scientific inquiry, arguing that great scientists were “driven not by the desire to be useful but merely the desire to satisfy their curiosity.”