Alec Cowan
Senior Podcast Producer
About
Alec Cowan is a senior podcast producer at KUOW, where he works on Booming and other podcast projects.
Alec has worn many hats at KUOW. He helped launch Soundside and brought many eclectic stories to the program, from a late-night patrol with real life superheroes to the sewing machine sounds of an artisanal sail loft. Additionally, he was previously a producer for The Record with Bill Radke and the Primed podcast.
Before joining KUOW, Alec worked in NPR's Story Lab, where he helped pilot the Louder Than a Riot podcast 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.
He's proud to be KUOW's unofficial "boat guy."
Location: Seattle
Languages Spoken: English
Pronouns: he/him/his
Podcasts
Stories
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WA lawmakers are subject to public disclosure law on paper. But are they in practice?
In 2019, the Washington Supreme Court ruled that state legislators are subject to the state's public disclosure law. In the last year, however, many public records requests of this nature have been denied, with records officers citing something journalists haven't heard of before: “legislative privilege.”
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As tech companies announce layoffs, the clock is ticking for immigrant workers
The big news in the tech world today is, of course, the announcement from Microsoft that it’ll lay off roughly 10,000 employees by April. Other tech giants have already announced big reductions. Let’s run down some of the numbers: Twitter has cut 3,700 jobs. Meta — 11,000. Salesforce — 7,000. And today, Amazon begins its planned reduction of 18,000 people. While the leaders of these companies are largely blaming macro-economic conditions, each layoff is felt at the personal level.
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Oil, homesteading, and a complicated family legacy: Erika Bolstad's 'Windfall'
Journalist Erika Bolstad inherited the right to drill oil under part of her great-grandmother's homestead in North Dakota. Instead, she dug up the truth behind family legends and wrestled with the ethics of land ownership and fossil fuels in the American West.
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Call it a comeback — whale counts encouragingly high in 2022
It’s been a banner year for whale sightings in our local waterways. That’s according to a new report from the Pacific Whale Watch Association, who counted large rebounds in Bigg's Killer Whales and humpback whales in the region.
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ZeniMax Studios forms biggest union in gaming — and the first for Microsoft
Before video game players get to solve a puzzle, swing a single axe, or save that princess, a quality assurance tester has tried to break the game in thousands of different ways. That tester may also be subject to difficult contract cycles, a grueling schedule, and low compensation.
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Could the U.S. ban TikTok for everyone?
ByteDance, the company that owns TikTok, is based in Beijing, and many U.S. officials worry that the user data it collects could be misused. That's led many states to ban the app on government devices, and some legislators want to take it a step further.
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Federal investigators charge two Puyallup men for Christmas substation attacks
On Dec. 31, federal prosecutors charged two Puyallup men for attacks on substations in Pierce County. Four electrical substations in Washington were attacked over Christmas weekend, knocking out power to 15,000 people in Pierce County and causing millions of dollars in damage. These knockouts came just weeks after attacks on two substations in North Carolina knocked out power for 45,000 people.
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Hear It Again: Cheers and jeers — Seattle's year in sports
Today, we’re taking a look back on big moments for Seattle sports fans in 2022. Locally, the Mariners broke a 21-year playoff drought, Sue Bird played her last game for the Storm, Russell Wilson left for Denver, and the Sounders hosted — and won — the CONCACAF championship. But internationally, the year kicked off with a controversial Winter Olympics, hosted in China, and ended with a contentious World Cup and Qatar.
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Seattle shipwreck enthusiasts find possible site of the deadliest wreck in PNW history
The S.S. Pacific was packed full of passengers in 1875. It was charting the first steamship voyage from Seattle to San Francisco, before Washington had even achieved statehood. But after a collision with a sailing vessel called The Orpheus, the Pacific and its cargo was lost. Now after decades of searching, two local researchers think they've found it.
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Sound it Out: Seattle graffiti update and a revisit to our electoral system
We're a show built around you – our listeners. Every other week, we bring you a segment called "Sound it Out," to broadcast your thoughts about the show and answer questions about stories we've covered. Today, we're looking back on our conversations with Mayor Bruce Harrell on graffiti in Seattle and why we vote for uncontested judges.