Joshua McNichols

Reporter

About

Joshua has been the "growing pains" reporter since 2015, documenting the region's growth and change. Joshua “took the long way” to radio, working in architecture firms for over a decade before pursuing his passion for public radio in 2007. By "long way," he means he's also been a writer, bicycle courier, commercial fisherman, bed-and-breakfast cook, carpenter, landscaper and stained glass salesman. He’s detailed animal enclosures to prevent jaguars from escaping the Miami Zoo. Once, while managing a construction site in Athens, Greece, he was given a noogie by an Albanian civil war refugee in his employ. “You do not tell those guys how to place stucco,” he said. All of which has no doubt made him the story-teller he is today.

Podcasts

Stories

  • Astronaut James B. Irwin, lunar module pilot, uses a scoop in making a trench in the lunar soil during Apollo 15 extravehicular activity (EVA). Irwin had a heart attack while orbiting the moon, which made NASA realize that they needed a better health monitoring system.
    Primed

    What Alexa can learn from a heart attack on the moon

    Minutes after the Apollo 15 lunar module blasted off the surface of the moon, Astronaut James Irwin’s heart began to stutter. Down at Mission Control, Dr. Charles Berry watched the astronaut’s EKG. He saw a series of rapid double beats with long pauses in between. If Irwin was on Earth, Dr. Berry said, “I’d have him in ICU being treated for a heart attack.”
  • Brittney Svach sells Amazon smart homes in Black Diamond, WA.
    Primed

    There's a neighborhood of Amazon 'smart homes' south of Seattle

    This week's Primed podcast explores Amazon's smart home technology. You can listen to the episode here. In the first part of the story, we baked muffins with Alexa in Amazon's smart home lab. Here, we talk to people who live in an Amazon smart home development in Black Diamond, WA. We also explore some very troubling consequences of having a fully wired home.

  • Carolyn Adolph and Joshua McNichols, hosts of KUOW's Primed podcast, pose for a portrait on Thursday, January 24, 2019, at Amazon's spheres in downtown Seattle.
    Primed

    We’re living longer. Can Alexa help us live better?

    On this week’s episode of Primed, we explore how smart speakers like Amazon’s Echo fit into the lives of older people. Some elders find Alexa annoying or intrusive. But others interact with the technology in practical, creative ways. Here are a few of their stories.

  • FILE - Amazon devices on display during an event at Amazon in Seattle.
    SoundQs

    How is Amazon changing our lives?

    Over the last year or so, the SoundQs team has gotten a lot of questions about one Seattle-based company. Amazon. Happily, KUOW's podcast Primed is finding answers to questions about how Amazon is changing our lives. Here's the first episode of their newest season, about Alexa and kids.

  • Primed

    Preview: Primed Season 3

    Amazon is ending up in more and more of our homes. But are we asking the right questions when we invite Amazon and Alexa into our lives?

  • Vaishali Kaushik lives in Sammamish, the wealthiest city in the US. She says sometimes that affluence can be a burden, such as when children want parents to buy them things to keep up with the neighbors.
    KUOW Newsroom

    What Sammamish's high median income really means

    The Seattle Times reports that Sammamish is the nation's richest city. Its median household income of $183,000 even beats San Francisco. We wondered – what’s it feel like to live in a city that rich? So we went to find out.