Schedule Change: Speakers Forum will end on May 29

May 13, 2022

Seattle, WA — After 18 years of production, KUOW’s Speakers Forum will air its last episode on Sunday, May 29.

As KUOW evaluated the needs of our audiences, listenership, and resources, it became apparent that it was time to sunset this program in order to prioritize other local programming. We do so with the utmost gratitude to the many community partners who made the show possible and to everyone at KUOW who worked on the program — especially current host John O'Brien, who will continue with other work in the KUOW newsroom.

Speakers Forum started in 2004, created by Jeff Hansen. It had many hosts since then, including John Moe, Sara Lerner, Jenny Asarnow, Jeannie Yandel, Jason Pagano, Andy Hurst, Dave Blanchard, Andrew Walsh, Jack Walters, Reiny Cohen, Rachel Solomon, Jennie Cecil Moore, Sonya Harris, Kendra Hanna, and current host, John O’Brien.

Over its 18 years of production, Speakers Forum has partnered with several organizations including Town Hall, Pacific Science Center, Elliott Bay Book Company, among many others to bring our audience readings, debates, and lectures by authors, intellectuals, officials and regular folks with important stories to tell. There are so many standout episodes, including Ijeoma Oluo’s “We Are Not A Liberal City”, Jill Lepore on the “Ethically Challenged Birth Of The Computer Age”, and “Race and Justice in Journalism, With Nikole Hannah-Jones”. Speakers Forum also aired KUOW events such as “Seattle's homeless crisis: A debate hosted by KUOW”, and it was the home of some excellent collaborations such as “On Asian America” and “Rebuilding Democracy” with Spokane Public Radio, NW Public Broadcasting, and Humanities Washington.

The Speakers Forum podcast will still be available with plenty of episodes to satiate inquisitive minds. KUOW will release its updated weekend schedule in the coming weeks.