KUOW Blog
News, factoids, and insights from KUOW's newsroom. And maybe some peeks behind the scenes. Check back daily for updates.
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Stories
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Reporter's notebook: centering underrepresented communities in the stories we tell
Check out KUOW's four-part series, The Ripple Effect, in which KUOW's Joshua McNichols teams up with freelance journalist Bunthay Cheam to understand how growth in the Seattle area continues to displace people and potential solutions.
S
ome years ago, I participated in the International Examiner's Advocacy Journalism Fellowship Program. One goal of the fellowship was to learn how to be advocates of the communities that we were to report from, communities that are often underrepresented.
My focus was on the Khmer community, the community that I come from. And because of this — because I felt being from the community meant knowing the community already — I walked into a lot of spaces with preconceived story ideas and judgments.
I learned very quickly to let go of those things. I learned the importance of sitting still and not saying anything; to show up more than once to community spaces — to listen and to really center the people who have blessed us with their stories. When I did that, I received a much more meaningful connection and in turn, a more genuine story.
When KUOW reporter Joshua McNichols and I first connected at Resistencia Coffee in South Park, I felt like we spent a lot of time feeling each other out and also sharing what it means for each of us to fully value someone's story. Out of that discussion, we embarked on creating a space that would be culturally centering, familiar, and safe for South Park's Southeast Asian neighbors to feel safe and vulnerable.
RELATED: How displacement feels in this South Seattle community
With the help of Kamna Shastri from KUOW's Community Engagement team, we were able to convene a community dinner and welcome community members, from elders to youth and from South Park residents, past to present. Cultivate South Park blessed us with their Idea Lab as a venue and we got to share stories over some wholesome Southeast Asian food, courtesy of Daneca Tran's Global Chill.
I hope that this community dinner can be a model of how large, white-led media institutions can continue reimagining what it means to engage and center the different communities they report on.
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Mapping the spaghetti highways of the West
Lately, Matthew Kauffman has been thinking a lot about spaghetti — specifically, wildlife spaghetti lines.
Kauffman, who works for the U.S. Geological Survey, has been working along with many tribal and state officials over the last several years to create new maps that chart wildlife. They want to see where the deer, elk, and pronghorn highways are that run throughout America’s Western states.
Such wandering lines on a map represent individual animal trails, and appear a lot like spaghetti.
Kauffman says it’s where those trails come together, that is really interesting.
“We think of it as sort of like a road system," Kauffman said. "We are trying to future out what the 'interstates' that the migratory ungulates are using. That most of the animals are using.”
Kauffman says it’s those wildlife interstates — or high-use corridors — that are the most important for the population to keep open and functional.
Read the full story on Northwest News Network.
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These candidates flipped 2 PNW Congressional districts
The Pacific Northwest is home to two Congressional districts that flipped parties in the midterms — one from red to blue, and another from blue to red. These incoming lawmakers begin their terms on Tuesday, Jan. 3. in D.C.
Both representatives — Democrat Marie Gluesenkamp Perez and Republican Lori Chavez-DeRemer — say they want to tackle issues for workers, especially those in timber and farming sectors.
RELATED: Joe Kent concedes, but is 'not done yet'
Gluesenkamp Perez flipped southwest Washington's 3rd Congressional District from red to blue. Chavez-DeRemer flipped Oregon's 5th District from blue to red. The 5th District covers a range of communities from south Portland to Salem, and the coast to Mount Hood.
Both women own small businesses. Gluesenkamp Perez says her goal is ultimately to help the working class.
"Even if you're not a small business owner, you can read the room," Gluesenkamp Perez said. "You can see that a lot of family businesses are getting bought out and consolidated and that it's hard on America. It's not good for our economy. It's not good for our workforce."
The two say they're hoping to land on committees that will let them help with local issues.
RELATED: Rep. Herrera Beutler's advice as she exits Congress
Political watchers say getting those local wins could be key if the women seek a second term in 2024.
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What's a 'housing benefit district' and why do people want them around light rail stations?
As new light rail stations are built in communities outside Seattle, advocates see a way to fund and build a lot more affordable housing.
In her law career, Faith Pettis has helped put together financing for tens of thousands of affordable housing units across Washington state. But she says current funding sources are inadequate to meet the demand that’s coming to the region.
RELATED: How displacement feels in this South Seattle community
The Puget Sound area alone needs to add 800,000 new homes by 2050 to accommodate growth.
The idea Pettis and other housing advocates are rallying behind would allow cities to create something called “housing benefit districts.”
“We need to do something big and to do something different, and this is that idea," Pettis said.
Housing benefit districts would let cities build entirely new communities around light rail stations, with plenty of affordable housing. State Rep. Cindy Ryu (D -Shoreline) plans to support the idea in the legislature this spring. Other lawmakers say they need to learn more before they take a side.
RELATED: How to create community out of a bunch of buildings
Still, some experts say such benefit districts are needed if Washington wants to meet its goal of building one million new homes by the year 2044.
Shoreline Mayor Keith Scully is another proponent of the idea.
"It essentially uses tax money," Scully said. "It says we’re going to subsidize housing for the lower income folks, from the upper income folks. It’s that simple ... it's more complicated than that in the structure, but that’s the basis of it.”
Opening up the possibility of housing benefit districts is just one idea that advocates are pushing for. Lawmakers have a few thoughts, too. Check out KUOW's series The Ripple Effect, which opens up the issue of Washington's housing woes, and potential solutions to them.
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50 wonderful things from 2022
I've been making annual lists of 50 Wonderful Pop Culture Things since 2010. They include big and small things, inspirational and silly things, things that were very popular and things that it seemed like nobody cared about except me. Sometimes, a theme emerges, and this year — particularly when it comes to TV and film — it's that a lot of what I loved came as part of projects I was, on the whole, ambivalent about. Elements sometimes work inside larger projects that only partly work, and that's part of the lovely thing about art.
The usual caveats apply: These are not objectively the best things; they are just wonderful things. There were far more than 50 wonderful things to admire this year, and there is far (far) more that I never saw or read or heard at all. But it never hurts to look back on the year and realize that in fact, delight was upon you over and over.
1. Apple's series The Afterparty, a murder mystery that presented each character's version of the evening as a separate episode made in a different style, had a big and stellar cast including Sam Richardson, Tiffany Haddish and Ike Barinholtz. But the musical episode told from the POV of Ben Schwartz's Yasper was both a believable spin on that guy's view of the world and a terrific one-off extravaganza of song and dance.
2. John Darnielle's novel Devil House was one of the most fascinating books I read this year, in part because Darnielle — an expansive and creative thinker — shifts its format and its tone as he unspools the story of the aftermath of a brutal crime. In fact, you can find similarities between Devil House and The Afterparty, if you look for them, in that part of the charm and challenge comes from existing in multiple genres at the same time.
3. How to be Perfect, Mike Schur's book about ethics that grew out of his work as the creator of The Good Place, is informative and funny, but also an example of pop culture's capacity to be a gateway to things beyond itself.
4. The Gilded Age on HBO certainly didn't have the impact that Julian Fellowes' other series Downton Abbey did, but it was buoyed by the stellar performance of Carrie Coon as a new-money wife whose social and personal brutality is matched only by her inescapable desire to be accepted and liked.
5. I take nothing away from Amanda Seyfried's exceptional performance in The Dropout, where she played Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes with great skill and restraint. But what has stuck with me most — what seemed most unlikely — is the section of dark comedy in the middle that includes Rich Sommer and Alan Ruck as part of the Walgreens contingent that visited the company before making a deal with Holmes and could have, but didn't, figure out that they were being had.
6. This one is for the home team: PCHH contributor Ronald Young, Jr. showed up on the third episode of Peacock's True Story With Ed & Randall, telling the tale of his prom to hosts Ed Helms and Randall Park. We already knew what a charmer he was, but the story is fabulous and surprising to the end.
7. I loved reading Antoine Wilson's Mouth to Mouth, a novel in which you learn the story of a man, and of another man, and of a time they spend together in an airport lounge while one tells the other his story. It's a delicious read down to the last sentence, which potentially turns the whole thing on its head — or at least tilts it on an angle.
8. Stephanie Foo's memoir What My Bones Know is about her experience with complex PTSD, but one of my very favorite elements is its surprisingly funny (at times) description of what it feels like to find the right therapist. (Disclosure: Stephanie and I share an editor at Ballantine Books.)
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Christmas brings new round of attacks on Northwest power grid
The Christmas crimes are the latest in a string of physical attacks on the Northwest power grid.
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Update 12/25, 10:30 p.m.: A fourth substation was attacked and set on fire Sunday night, according to the Pierce County Sheriff's Department.
Electrical utilities reported physical attacks on the power grid at three locations outside of Tacoma, Washington, before dawn Christmas morning.
About 15,000 people lost power, according to the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department.
The sheriff’s department is calling the incidents “burglaries,” though nothing was stolen from the three substations.
Substations are a key part of the electrical grid that keeps the nation’s lights on. They convert high-voltage electricity to the lower voltages utility customers use.
“It is unknown if there are any motives or if this was a coordinated attack on the power systems,” according to a statement from the sheriff’s department.
Tacoma Public Utilities, which suffered damage at substations in suburban Spanaway and Graham, called the incidents “attacks” and said its facilities were “deliberately targeted.”
Puget Sound Energy, which suffered damage at a substation in Puyallup, called it “vandalism.”
Sgt. Darren Moss Jr of the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department took issue with calling the incidents “attacks.”
“There's nothing that we have found yet that says this is a terrorist attack,” Moss said.
“At this point, we believe their goal was to shut down the power. The reasons for that, we don't know yet,” he said.
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The sunken and watery treasures around the Northwest: Today So Far
- There are treasures sunken below the surface of Northwest waters. These two old friends have a mission to find them.
- Oregon and Washington are aiming to become a "hydrogen hub."
- Washington's AG has fined another gun store for selling banned high-capacity magazines.
This post originally appeared in KUOW's Today So Far newsletter for December 23, 2022.
Jeff Hummel and Matt McCauley met in high school on Mercer Island back in the late 1970s. There was one thing that created a bond between them that has lasted decades — mystery.
Specifically, mysteries that lay beneath the surface of the waters we look at, swim in, and sail through every day. It started when Hummel's father told him tales of an airplane that crashed into Lake Washington years ago. His father saw it happen while working for Boeing in Renton. Since McCauley had scuba certification, they hatched a plan to search for that plane. They found it. That led to another plan, to raise and retrieve the plane. They collected old air hoses from gas stations, pumped air down into the plane, and floated it. Then, they borrowed a telephone pole truck to move it ... to McCauley's driveway. Their cunning plans were short on where to put this thing if they ever actually got it.
But this story about two friends isn't about that crashed plane. It's not about the other planes they eventually raised from the bottom of Lake Washington. It's not about how the Navy got a little mad about these two locals finding and retrieving its sunken wrecks and eventually sued them. This story is about the Pacific — the Pacific Ocean and the S.S. Pacific that sunk off the shores of Washington before it was ever a state. The resting place of that tragedy has remained a mystery for nearly 150 years ... until now. Soundside has that story here.
Our Northwest waters hold more treasures than we realize, and I'm not just talking about sunken planes and ships. OK nerds, get ready to be excited. I'm getting hyped over hydrogen.
Here are the nuts and bolts of the story: Oregon and Washington have submitted a joint bid to the feds to get funds for hydrogen production projects. It could make our region a "hydrogen hub." I know it sounds weird, but potential hydrogen hubs are all the rage these days. The Department of Energy has $7 billion in hydrogen hub grants to give out and nearly every state in the nation has submitted proposals, asking for the money. In fact, together, all the requests from across the USA add up to about $60 billion. So in the end, some folks are going to be turned away, and the best prospects are going to move forward.
Why is this a big deal? Hydrogen can be produced from water, and the Northwest has a decent share of water sources. But beyond that, alternative forms of energy are going to be growth industries in the years ahead. You hear a lot about solar or wind. Hydrogen is another energy source that many feel is going to play a big role in the future energy mix. There are a lot of gas guzzlers that could potentially be converted to hydrogen fuel. Consider the trucks moving all the goods you buy at the store or purchase online. Another example, which Northwest News Network's Tom Banse points out, is airplane fuel. Universal Hydrogen is one company testing hydrogen fuel in a commuter plane called Lightning McClean, which is taking to the skies over Moses Lake right now.
Now consider all the things we rely on, which in turn, rely on fossil fuels. Hydrogen fuel tech is not yet up to the speed of our society, but it does offer some hope beyond petroleum. And that is exciting, even if you aren't a nerd. Read Tom's full story here.
Another gun store was found violating Washington's ban on high-capacity magazines. We sort of knew this was coming. Attorney General Bob Ferguson announced earlier this month that his office ran an investigation to see if any stores were attempting to get around the state's new ban. We already knew about a gun store in Federal Way that was selling the magazines, but the AG's office said it was working on fines for another yet-to-be named store. Now we know.
WSG Guns in Lakewood is the second shop. The story here is similar to the Federal Way store. It basically worked like this: The banned magazines were not on display, but if you asked about them in sort of a hush-hush tone, employees would sell them to you, but ring you up for some other item. This way, there was no record of the sale. But the AG's office knew about the sales because it sent investigators out to conduct a series of sting operations at 25 shops around the state. It found two shops violating the ban. Read more here.
AS SEEN ON KUOW
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80 cars stolen per day across King and Pierce counties last month
Talk about the work of a Grinch, or a whole lot of Grinches, aiming to steal cars across Western Washington.
The Puget Sound Auto Theft Task Force says 39 cars were stolen in Pierce County this past Wednesday alone. More than half of those thefts were of Kia or Hyundai models.
Kia and Hyundai models made between 2011 and 2021 are especially vulnerable because thieves can pop off the steering column and use a simple USB cable to start them as if they were using the car's key.
"Experienced thieves and juveniles alike have learned how to start these vehicles without a key, thanks to videos circulating on social media," the task force said in a statement. "Thieves will break your window, pop off the steering column, start your car using nothing more than a USB cable, and will be gone in under a minute."
It's not a new phenomenon. Last summer, Western Washington law enforcement agencies warned of this fault that car thieves were exploiting. At the time, instructions on how to use a USB cable to steal the cars had been spreading on social media for months, and thefts of such models were rising.
The Puget Sound Auto Theft Task Force is urging Kia and Hyundai owners to get GPS trackers for their vehicles, steering wheel locks, or other antitheft devices.
"While many stolen vehicles do get recovered by our task force and other police agencies, they are often found in an undriveable condition or have extensive damage and/or drug contamination. We don’t want this to happen to your vehicle, so we encourage you to take action today," the task force stated.
This week's thefts are part of an ongoing problem. In November alone, there were 862 car thefts reported in Pierce County, and there were 1,536 thefts reported in King County. The task force notes this averages to 80 stolen cars across both counties each day.
Statewide, 41,330 vehicles were stolen between January and November this year. According to a graph from the task force, this is a dramatic spike that began a couple years ago. Before that, car thefts generally numbered less than 30,000.
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‘Tis the season … for king tides around Puget Sound
‘Tis the season for king tides: The highest tides of the year. Extreme high tides are headed to Puget Sound Saturday, Sunday, and Monday morning of the last week of December.
King tides last January washed up nearly two feet higher than expected, breaking records and flooding some coastal buildings and roads.
University of Washington climate researcher Guillaume Mauger said this month’s king tides are unlikely to be so extreme.
“The king tides for next week are over a foot and a half higher than a typical high tide in Seattle,” Mauger said. “Most of our protections on the coast are designed for a 100-year event, and this wouldn't get close to that.”
“There could be some flooding Friday and Saturday, especially on south facing shores in Puget Sound and North Sound,” Washington Sea Grant oceanographer Ian Miller said by email. “The marine forecast suggests strong winds from the south.”
Tides are influenced by wind and weather, as well as gravitational pulls from the moon and sun.
Last January’s record-breaking tides got a boost from exceptionally low air pressure that allowed Puget Sound to bulge upwards. The National Weather Service expects the atmospheric river system in the Washington forecast will have low pressure, but not exceptionally low. The agency is not forecasting major flooding from these king tides, but heavy precipitation could bring flooding along streams and rivers.
King County officials say flooding is the most frequent natural disaster in the county.
On Puget Sound, king tides come in about nine inches higher than they did a century ago to, thanks to global warming.
Scientists say these tides offer a glimpse of normal conditions in future decades as the planet keeps heating up.
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Costs, and potential benefits, of reducing emissions in Washington's agricultural industry
Soil management in the agricultural industry can generate greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change. Reducing those emissions for growers in Eastern Washington can initially come with a high price tag, leading farmers to weigh the costs against potential benefits of solutions.
A preliminary study from researchers at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory found practices like no-till farming, or planting cover crops, can help reduce agricultural greenhouse gas emissions.
But starting up no-till farming practices could cost up to $750,000 for a mid-sized farm. Long-term benefits could make up for that cost, however, according to Abigail King, a scientist at the lab.
“We hypothesize that a lot of the benefits will increase over time," King said. "It’s going to take time for the land to adjust, for the crops to adjust to a change in practice.”
King says more study is needed on long-term costs and benefits for growers.
Scientists with the Washington State Department of Agriculture say, besides economics, some growers who want to implement conservation practices worry about using extra water to grow cover crops.
Scientists say that cover crops help sequester carbon, a greenhouse gas. And after several years, those cover crops could increase the amount of water that soil holds.
Read the full story here.
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Another gun store fined for violating Washington's high-capacity magazine ban
A Lakewood gun shop will pay a $15,000 fine for violating Washington's ban on selling high-capacity magazines.
State Attorney General Bob Ferguson says that WGS Guns intentionally broke the law for a couple of months after the ban went into effect last summer. The store eventually complied with the ban, however.
RELATED: 3 gun safety measures lawmakers are pursuing for the 2023 legislative session
WGS is the second gun store the attorney general has fined for violating the state's ban on high-capacity magazines. In early December, the AG's office announced fines for Federal Way Discount Guns and Indoor Range, which not only allegedly sold the magazines, but also made efforts to hide the sales.
As of July 2022, it is illegal under Washington state law to manufacture, distribute, sell, or offer for sale magazines that hold more than 10 rounds. Any violation of the high-capacity magazine ban also constitutes a violation of the Consumer Protection Act.
The recent crackdown is the result of a "sweep of gun dealers" by AG investigators. Investigators visited a total of 25 gun stores across King, Pierce, Snohomish, Thurston, Yakima, Kittitas, Benton, and Spokane counties. The sweep found two stores violating the statewide ban: WGD Guns and Federal Way Discount Guns.
The AG's office reports that it sent investigators to WGS Guns two months after the ban went into effect. They were sold a 13-round magazine for a Glock 23 pistol, as well as a 15-round magazine for a Glock 22. At the time, the clerk reportedly admitted they would be ringing the magazines up as other items so they would not appear on the receipt and there would be no record.
Investigators visited the store at a later date, but employees declined to sell the banned magazines. High-capacity magazines were not on display for sale during any investigator's visit to the gun store.
“Our sweep confirmed that the overwhelming majority of gun retailers in Washington are doing the right thing and complying with the law,” Ferguson said. “We will continue to proactively enforce this law, and take action against anyone who illegally sells high-capacity magazines.”
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Will the Seattle-area embrace housing solutions?: Today So Far
Here's some information that is not news to anyone: The Seattle region has a housing problem, and it's only slated to get worse in the years ahead. Here's some information that is news: We have solutions.
This post originally appeared in KUOW's Today So Far newsletter for December 22, 2022.
Whether or not our region will embrace any solutions is a big question. Joshua McNichols has been KUOW's go-to reporter for issues like regional growth and housing. It's a tough beat. This issue is very, very complex. The result is that a lot of people are being displaced as they search for a stable place to live. Joshua's latest series, The Ripple Effect, is a comprehensive dive into our housing issue, and the most recent story takes a look at solutions being tossed around, including:
- Subsidized down payments for first homes
- Community land trusts for lower-income homebuyers
- Creation of new "missing middle" housing, such as duplexes, triplexes, townhomes, row houses, and small condo buildings
- Opening up the ability for governments to create dense communities
Beyond bullet points are personal stories, and local communities built upon generations of neighbors living in and around Seattle. That is what is at the core of all this. There are a lot of angles into this. I highly recommend you keep up with Joshua's full series on this, The Ripple Effect. Also, take the time to listen to the comprehensive Ripple Effect audio feature, which KUOW has conveniently podcasted for you. It's the perfect coverage to pair with your commute ... which brings me to another thought around all this.
Consider the situation we are all in — and I mean all of us. If you're living in the burbs and complain about tents along the road, or traffic, or other regional woes, housing is a problem woven into all of this. As Joshua reports in today's story, the Seattle metro area needs 800,000 new homes by 2050 — that's double the number of homes in Seattle right now. One current Burien project aims to house 26 families. Another project in Renton could house 35. Such smaller-scale projects can't keep up with the demand.
With that in mind, I'd like to highlight one more solution, which is not new: remote work. Sure, this doesn't solve the decline of Seattle communities, or every problem we have, but it is a piece of the puzzle. Let people find the housing that works for them, and remove the commute.
If you've paid attention to KUOW's reporting over the past couple years, as well as this newsletter, you're aware that remote work has surged ever since the pandemic forced a lot of people to stay home. But this phenomenon is not new, it's simply been exacerbated. Seattle has been talking about how to counter massive rents and high costs of living for years now. In 2018, Joshua also reported on a growing trend of remote workers, many of whom call Seattle "home," but ditched local rents for better, affordable living. At the time, it was notable that the number of telecommuters in the USA was greater than the number of folks using public transit.
Pandemic conditions aren't the same today as in 2020, but the advantages of remote work linger.
"These are the realities of 21st century working," Anne Helen Petersen told Seattle Now in September.
Petersen is an expert on remote and hybrid work, and is co-author of "Out of Office." She adds that companies and managers "can vote for the future, or you can try to hold on to those old ways of working from the past, and then pay a consulting company in five years to tell you to get with the future. Those are your options."
Just a taste of what KUOW/NPR has been reporting around this:
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