Joshua McNichols
Growth and Development Reporter
About
As KUOW's Growth and Development reporter and co-host of KUOW's Booming podcast, Joshua's "growing pains" beat sits at the nexus of housing, transportation, urban planning, government and the economy. His favorite stories also include themes of history, technology, and climate change.
Joshua holds a B.A. in Architecture from the University of Washington. Public Radio is his second career; architecture was his first. He is proud of the many odd jobs he's held in his life, such as salmon fisher, author, bike courier, and bed-and-breakfast cook.
Location: Seattle
Languages Spoken: English
Pronouns: he/him
Professional Affiliations: The Society of Professional Journalists, Western Washington Chapter
Stories
-
Tim Eyman is running for governor ... and against Seattle
Tim Eyman, the man behind anti-tax initiatives in Washington state, says he's running for governor.
-
Politics
A cop shot this wooden bullet at me at the WTO protests in Seattle. Here’s the story it tells
During the WTO protests, a police officer shot a wooden bullet at me. It bounced off the wall, and landed at my feet. It didn’t hurt me. But it shattered something: A myth about what Seattle was in 1999 and what it could give to the rest of the world.
-
Business
Should an AI be managing your meds?
Joyce Lee, a pediatrician and professor at the University of Michigan, thinks a lot about how technology and design can help people remember to take their pills. Her inspiration? A ketchup bottle.
-
Sawant hopes to make good on promise to tax Amazon
Most of Amazon’s preferred candidates for city council lost the election. And next year, the senior-most member of the Seattle City Council – will be Amazon’s biggest critic.
-
Business
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.”
-
Technology
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.
-
Technology
The Seattle super hacker will be released Tuesday. But she won't be free
On Tuesday, the Capital One hacker will be released to a halfway house to await her trial. Paige Thompson stands accused of stealing records from 106 million Capital One customers. Thompson’s attorneys argued that as a transgender woman, she should not be held in an all-male jail. A judge agreed.
-
Business
Amazon has a 'secret apartment.' What's in it? We found out
There’s a secret apartment on the 30th Floor of Amazon’s Day One building in Seattle. We’ve wanted to get inside for months. This week, we finally did.
-
Business
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.
-
Technology
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.