Alec Cowan
Producer, Soundside
About
Alec Cowan is a producer for Soundside. His interests have brought many eclectic stories to the program, and his segments gravitate toward history, technology, arts and culture, and the environment. Proud to be KUOW's unofficial "boat guy."
Prior to joining Soundside, Alec wore many hats at KUOW. He was a producer for The Record with Bill Radke and Primed seasons two and three . He also reported an episode of SoundQs detailing how prohibition forever changed Seattle policing and assisted with reporting a breakthrough cold case solved with the use of genetic genealogy.
Before joining KUOW Alec worked in NPR's Story Lab, where he helped pilot the Louder Than a Riot podcast, about hip-hop and mass incarceration, 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.
Location: Seattle
Languages Spoken: English
Pronouns: he/him/his
Podcasts
Stories
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Health
It takes a lot of people to keep a hospital running
Voices of the pandemic features people in the Seattle area who are on the front lines of the coronavirus outbreak.
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Health
Life with a newborn during the coronavirus pandemic
Melissa Santos is a Seattle journalist and a new mom. She gave birth as the coronavirus began to spread in Washington state.
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What are the true costs of going cashless?
Some modern customers can remember the days in line at a grocery store and seeing someone ahead of you take out the dreaded checkbook. That checkbook meant something. I meant more waiting as the person filled it out, signed it, handed it over for it to be inspected. Perhaps their ID had to be documented for extra security. It was a time-sucking pain. But some see using cash as the modern equivalent of this consumer pet peeve – good old green money. It turns out, cash is no longer king, it’s an inconvenience.
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Arts & Life
How prohibition forever changed policing in Seattle
On a recent SoundQs segment we learned about historic bootlegger Roy Olmstead. Today we do a deep dive on another larger-than-life figure from that time, black business owner Doc Hamilton. Both men dealt in illegal alcohol, but had wholly different experiences with the temperance movement and the law.
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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.
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Crime
GUILTY: Bill Talbott convicted of murder after family tree unearths his decades-old secret
This is the first time a suspect was nabbed using the combined powers of DNA and old-school genealogy.
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Crime
This horrific cold case could be solved by tracing the murderer's family tree
To the FBI profiler, it didn’t look like the first time this person had murdered somebody.
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Environment
Hear it again: Are we loving our public lands to death?
While Mount Rainier may be the most famous of Washington's national parks, there are 19.8 million acres of public land in Washington state. But public lands -- the idea of land belonging to the people, for the people -- have a fraught history.
