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Soundside

Get to know the PNW and each other. Soundside airs Monday through Thursday at 12 p.m. and 8 p.m. on KUOW starting January 10. Listen to Soundside on Spotify, iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Additional Credits: Logo art is designed by Teo Popescu. Audio promotions are produced by Hans Twite. Community engagement led by Zaki Hamid. Our Director of New Content and Innovation is Brendan Sweeney.

Mission Statement:

Soundside believes establishing trust with our listeners involves taking the time to listen.

We know that building trust with a community takes work. It involves broadening conversations, making sure our show amplifies systemically excluded voices, and challenging narratives that normalize systemic racism.

We want Soundside to be a place where you can be part of the dialogue, learn something new about your own backyard, and meet your neighbors from the Peninsula to the Palouse.

Together, we’ll tell stories that connect us to our community — locally, nationally and globally. We’ll get to know the Pacific Northwest and each other.

What do you think Soundside should be covering? Where do you want to see us go next?

Leave us a voicemail! You might hear your call on-air: 206-221-3213

Share your thoughts directly with the team at soundside@kuow.org.


Join the Soundside Listener Network

Enter your number below or text SOUND to 206-926-9955 to get your questions in front of local government officials and share your thoughts on issues in the Puget Sound region. We’ll text you 1-2 prompts per week, and your response may be featured on the show!



Episodes

  • caption: The sign at Seattle City Hall.

    Facing a $230 million deficit, Seattle mulls options to close the gap

    Five new members of Seattle’s City Council said during their campaigns that they would like to audit the city budget for waste and redundancies --before raising or adding new taxes. But now, as a $230 million city budget deficit looms, the realities of a time-consuming and expensive audit process are leading those new councilmembers to back off the idea. That means they likely have to take a hard look at something they did not want to do: add new revenue through taxes.

  • hummingbird bainbridge island

    Hear it again: Documenting local hummingbirds

    Soundside Producer Hans Anderson talks to Burke Museum Curator of Birds Alejandro Rico Guevera about the local hummingbird population, in a story that originally aired in January.

  • caption:  The Washington Legislative Building, Feb. 16, 2024.

    Is Washington state's public records act losing its power?

    Public records belong to the people. That was the argument made in 1972 that spurred the Washington Public Records Act into law, opening virtually every government document to the public. But that law — widely considered one of the strongest public records laws in the country — is losing some of its teeth as legislators pile on more exemptions, according to a report recently published by the Washington Coalition for Open Government.

  • caption: Tamara Floyd, assistant chief of investigations at the Tacoma Police Department, is portrayed on Friday, March 22, 2024, at Mercerdale Park on Mercer Island.

    10 female cops speak out about sexism, harassment within the Seattle Police Department

    From the outside, the Seattle Police Department might seem like a welcoming place for female officers in the male dominated field of law enforcement. But women in the force are starting to tell a different story about the department – one where they feel “pigeonholed” into specific roles and face harassment and sexism.

  • caption: A "Newton" model manikin is pictured at Thermetrics' Interbay assembly office. Newton is the "tried and true" manikin for the company, and can heat and sweat.

    How sweating manikins can help us prepare for a warming world

    Put simply, humans are complicated – and our feedback is subjective. Put a jacket on someone and ask them if it's warm, cold, breezy or stuffy, and you'll get a range of largely unscientific answers. To get quality data – the kind that is valuable for companies – you need a sophisticated tool. A tool that can sweat.

  • caption: Emergency rooms in Washington often act as stop gap for those needing mental health care.

    Should mental health treatment be forced if someone needs care, but refuses it?

    A new podcast from KUOW and The Seattle Times sets out to explore why so many people with severe mental illnesses — who make up 7% of the state's population — go untreated in Washington. Episode 2 of Lost Patients focuses on "involuntary commitment," a legal mechanism that allows someone to be forced into medical treatment if they are deemed a danger to themselves, a danger to others, or are gravely disabled.

  • caption: The national flag of Haiti.

    'Asking for the right to dream.' The view of Haiti’s gang crisis from Seattle

    The situation in Haiti, which is caught in the grip of a weeks-long outbreak of gang violence, is “90% chaos,” according to Pierre Stanley Baptiste, the managing director and co-founder of the co-working space Impact Hub Port-au-Prince. The Impact Hub is supported by Kay Tita, a Seattle-based social impact organization that supports Haitian entrepreneurs and small business owners.