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Whitney Henry-Lester

Podcast Producer

About

Whitney is a podcast producer at KUOW. She helped develop some of KUOW's first podcasts, including How's Your Day? and Second Wave.

Whitney has a degree in film, but she has spent most of her career producing and editing audio stories. She has also worked with StoryCorps, The Third Coast International Audio Festival, 99% Invisible, and Transom.org.

She once ran an audio artists residency from her apartment in Lima, Peru.

Location: Tacoma

Languages: English, Spanish

Pronouns: she/they

Stories

  • JizuBodhisattva.png
    Arts & Life

    Jizo Bodhisattva

    During the mizu kuyo ritual for pregnancy loss, a small Jizo Bodhisattva statue enshrines ceremonial remains of a lost child. Following Shin Yu’s miscarriage in 2012, she had a mizu kuyo ceremony to process her grief.

  • caption: Dylan Tomine fishing for steelhead
    Arts & Life

    Steelhead

    Dylan Tomine has a passion for steelhead trout. Or an obsession. Or an addiction.

  • caption: Donna reads Ana's letter to the future.
    Arts & Life

    Time Capsule

    On the eve of selling her family’s house, Donna Miscolta’s daughter had a special request: Go to the stairwell and pull back the loose board on the bottom step.

  • caption: Eason Yang
    Arts & Life

    Resume

    Eason Yang was on an ambitious career trajectory, helping tech companies like Uber change the world. Until he got cancer.

  • Ten Thousand Things - Episode 1 Graphic
    Arts & Life

    Name

    A name is an object that defines who we are. But what if our name is wrong?

  • caption: Ten Thousand Things: Artifacts of Asian American Life
    Arts & Life

    The Blue Suit is back... now as Ten Thousand Things

    In many Chinese sayings, “ten thousand” is used in a poetic sense to convey something infinite, vast, and unfathomable. For Shin Yu Pai – award-winning poet and museologist – the story of Asians in America is just that. Introducing Ten Thousand Things, a special podcast series about modern-day artifacts of Asian American life, created and hosted by Shin Yu Pai and produced by KUOW.

  • Ghost Herd Logo FINAL
    Crime

    Part 6: The Reckonin'

    Native Americans once owned these lands, and they still treat the Columbia Basin as their sacred home. We’ve all benefited from that taken land, but now corporations are the West’s new settlers. Meanwhile, Cody faces a federal judge and his tight-knit rural community. His sons start taking over what remains of the family’s vast operation and beat-up reputation.

  • Ghost Herd Logo FINAL
    Crime

    Part 5: The Bidding War

    The Easterday empire is being broken apart. Some of the most valuable farmland in America is up for sale, and the billionaires are coming to town. The bidding war over water-rich lands shows the shift in how America farms.

  • Ghost Herd Logo FINAL
    Crime

    Part 4: The Crash

    Cody's swindle comes crashing down, and it’s all thanks to Covid. When a giant meat operation discovers the truth about his ghost herd, they take aim at Cody.

  • Ghost Herd Logo FINAL
    Crime

    Part 3: The Gamble

    Why would someone create a ghost herd? Behind Cody Easterday’s swindle was an even-bigger gambling habit on the futures market. That vice may have changed the price of American beef slapping down on your kitchen table. We also look at how all farmin’ is a gamble.