Cascade PBS Ideas Festival

Introducing the Black Arts Legacies Podcast!

Enjoy this short excerpt of Crosscut's newest podcast title, which features host Brooklyn Jamerson-Flowers touring the places that have fostered Seattle’s Black artists.

Every episode of the Black Arts Legacies podcast explores the history and ongoing impact of an art spaces in Seattle, the stories of each built around the voices of the artists who claim these places as critical to their development and experts who understand their deep history.

The podcast is part of Black Arts Legacies, a major multimedia project from Crosscut also featuring profiles, original photography, and videos all about Black arts and artists in Seattle. 

Subscribe to the Black Arts Legacies podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher or Google Play.

Are Authoritarians Winning? with Ruth Ben-Ghiat, Rebekah Koffler, Steven Levitsky and David Corn

A panel of experts discusses similarities and differences between anti-democratic developments in Russia and the U.S. 

There is a lot to be said about authoritarians right now. Most notably, president of Russia Vladimir Putin has been waging a war in Ukraine that is upending the global order while suppressing dissent at home. 

Even before his attempted conquest of Kyiv, though, Putin’s authoritarian rap sheet was plenty long, replete with intercontinental election meddling and persecution of his political opponents. And the Russian leader is only one of a crop of authoritarians throughout the world.

And then there is the creeping authoritarianism in the United States, most visible in an anti-democratic insurrection by supporters of now-former President Donald Trump on January 6, 2021. 

For this episode of the Crosscut Talks podcast, journalist David Corn explores these threads with an expert panel including U.S. intelligence expert Rebekah Koffler, professor of history Ruth Ben-Ghiat and professor of government Steven Levitsky, all of whom have written recent books that, in one way or another, track the rise of strongmen and their threats to democracy.

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Credits

Host: Mark Baumgarten

Producer: Sara Bernard

Event producers: Jake Newman, Andrea O'Meara

Engineers: Resti Bagcal, Viktoria Ralph

A Republican in the City Attorney’s Office with Ann Davison

After taking over for her progressive predecessor, Davison discusses how her office will navigate prosecution and public safety.

When Ann Davison was elected Seattle city attorney last November, it flew in the face of the city’s progressive reputation. Electoral races in the city are nonpartisan, but Davison’s identity as a Republican was well-known, and her platform was firmly tough on crime. Her election was a kind of backlash to the backlash. 

Just a year before, in the wake of the 2020 protests over racist policing, Seattle leaders were seriously entertaining the idea of defunding the police. Back then, the idea of a Republican overseeing misdemeanor prosecutions in the city was unthinkable. But in November, Davison defeated a candidate who embodied activist opposition to status quo law enforcement, and in January she replaced a 12-year incumbent who was proudly progressive. 

In the months since, Davison has been actively retooling how the city handles misdemeanor cases, while the concerns over public safety that helped get her into office have continued to grow. She has also made news for a recent decision to dismiss thousands of backlogged misdemeanor cases.

For this episode of the Crosscut Talks podcast, journalist Joni Balter talks with Davison about how, exactly, she is reshaping the office she inherited, why she dismissed those cases and when voters can expect to see the impact of her leadership.

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Credits

Host: Mark Baumgarten

Producer: Sara Bernard

Event producers: Jake Newman, Andrea O'Meara

Engineers: Resti Bagcal, Viktoria Ralph

Safe and Sound: A Conversation with Seattle Police Chief Adrian Diaz and Community Leaders on Public Safety

At a live Civic Cocktail event, panelists discussed how city law enforcement might navigate short-term solutions and systemic reforms.

What does it mean to be safe in Seattle, to be shielded from danger or threat so you can live your life fully, without fear, no matter where or who you are? 

It's a big question, as Seattle wrestles with rising crime, an overwhelmed police department, a strained legal system and neighbors fed up and frustrated by everything from distrust around racial disparities to what feels like inaction, bordering on neglect. All with this nagging sense that, after the reckonings of the past few years, we're still not seeing the bigger picture.  

For this episode of Civic Cocktail, host Mónica Guzmán explores how we define and address public safety over the course of two conversations with four guests close to the issue. 

The show begins with three local leaders whose community advocacy gives them each a critical lens on what public safety is all about. Then, Guzmán sits down with the man in charge of the most powerful local institution officially charged with supporting safety in our city, Seattle Police interim Chief Adrian Diaz.

This conversation was recorded on May 19, 2022.

Civic Cocktail is a production of Seattle City Club and Crosscut.

Subscribe to the Civic Cocktail podcast now to receive future conversations in your podcast feed earlier. 

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Credits

Host: Mónica Guzmán

Podcast production: Mark Baumgarten

Event production: Jake Newman, Andrea O'Meara

Video Production: Stephen Hegg

Audio support: Sara Bernard

The Fight to End Homelessness with Marc Dones, Karen Salinas and LaMont Green

King County outreach leaders say an approach informed by lived experience can help solve the worsening crisis.

In January, the King County Homeless Authority issued a report stating that more than 40,000 people had experienced homelessness in the county in the past year. It was a much larger number than any previously reported, in part a result of using new methodology, but it was not necessarily surprising. 

Now seven years after the city and the county declared a state of emergency to help address homelessness, the problem has become so widespread in the greater Seattle area that it is nearly impossible to ignore. It can also seem nearly impossible to address in a meaningful way. 

For this episode of the Crosscut Talks podcast, we listen in on a conversation with three people who are nonetheless attempting to do just that: King County Regional Homeless Authority CEO Marc Dones, outreach provider Karen E. Salinas and the CEO of the Racial Equity Action Lab, Lamont Green.

In conversation with Crosscut city reporter Josh Cohen, these three outreach leaders discuss why the homeless population has grown so large, where leadership has gone wrong in the past and how an approach informed by the lived experience of those living in a state of homelessness could help them get things right.

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Credits

Host: Mark Baumgarten

Producer: Sara Bernard

Event producers: Jake Newman, Andrea O'Meara

Engineers: Resti Bagcal, Viktoria Ralph

The Crisis in Education with Chris Reykdal and Uti Yamassee Hawkins

The state's top education official and a Seattle teacher’s union leader discuss lessons learned and the path forward.

Concern over America’s students predates the pandemic. Education — and public education, especially — is always in some form of crisis for someone. Gaps in student opportunity and achievement, for instance, existed long before anyone had heard of COVID–19.

What the pandemic did, though — and this is a well-worn idea for anyone who has been tracking reports or has parented a student through this period — is that it made the problems in America’s schools impossible to ignore. And it also may have presented some solutions. 

Those persistent problems and unlikely solutions are the subject of this episode of the Crosscut Talks podcast, which features Washington state’s superintendent of public instruction, Chris Reykdahl, and Uti Yamassee Hawkins, vice president of the Seattle Education Association, which represents the teachers in the state’s largest school district. 

In their conversation with Crosscut news editor Donna Blankinship, which took place on May 3, 2022, as part of the Crosscut Festival, both draw on their perspectives as leaders, as well as their classroom experience, to help examine an education system at a crossroads. 

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Credits

Host: Mark Baumgarten

Producer: Sara Bernard

Event producers: Jake Newman, Andrea O'Meara

Engineers: Resti Bagcal, Viktoria Ralph

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Notes

If you enjoyed this conversation, you'll want to listen to the latest season of This Changes Everything, a six-episode examination of the impact of the pandemic on public education in Washington state, told through the experiences of students, teachers and families. Search "This Changes Everything" on your podcast player or listen to all episodes here. 

The Pursuit of Justice with Bob Ferguson

Washington's attorney general discusses his post-Trump workload and the future of reproductive rights in the state.

For many Americans opposed to the policies of then-President Donald Trump, the litigation brought by Washington state Attorney General Bob Ferguson was an essential part of their resistance. By the time Trump left the White House, Ferguson’s office had won 50 out of 52 decisions in cases against the administration, a record highly touted at the time. 

But with Trump’s departure from the White House, Ferguson’s star turn on the national stage has ended, for the time being. His work hasn’t. 

Under his direction, the Office of the Attorney General made headlines recently for successfully taking prescription opioid distributors to trial and for battling the Biden White House, which is challenging a state law that seeks to protect workers at Hanford. The office has also helped shape state legislation that impacts gun sales and police accountability.  

This episode of the Crosscut Talks podcast features a May 7, 2022, conversation from the Crosscut Festival in which the attorney general spoke with former KIRO-TV journalist Essex Porter about the reasoning behind these decisions, as well as the possibility of the U.S. Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade.

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Credits

Host: Mark Baumgarten

Producer: Sara Bernard

Event producers: Jake Newman, Andrea O'Meara

Engineers: Resti Bagcal, Viktoria Ralph

The Powers of a Governor with Jay Inslee

For the first in a series of conversations with statewide leaders, the governor discusses how he has used his office to address mounting crises.

For much of his three terms as governor, Jay Inslee has remained a relatively popular politician, a Democrat leading a blue state through an era of deep partisanship. More recently, though, his approval ratings have sagged under the weight of historic crises. 

The COVID-19 pandemic, in particular, has become a defining event for the Democratic governor, who early on used his executive authority to issue some of the most severe restrictions in the nation, including masking requirements, vaccine mandates and business closures. 

Now the governor finds himself at a crossroads where patience for such measures has waned, even as the virus remains a threat. Meanwhile, Inslee has mounted a full-throated defense of reproductive rights in the state and continued to trumpet climate policy he believes will stave off future disaster. 

For this episode of the Crosscut Talks podcast, the governor talks about all of these issues with KUOW’s Bill Radke. The interview, which was conducted on May 7 as part of the Crosscut Festival, is the first of three with statewide leaders that we will be publishing over the next week.

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Credits

Host: Mark Baumgarten

Producer: Sara Bernard

Event producers: Jake Newman, Andrea O'Meara

Engineers: Resti Bagcal, Viktoria Ralph

Nikole Hannah-Jones on 1619’s Success, Backlash and Future

The New York Times journalist discusses how the 1619 Project has become a source text for America’s racial reckoning — and the subject of major backlash.

That slavery is a part of the American story is no secret. But until a few years ago, the question of how central slavery has been to American life has rarely been considered beyond academic circles. 

That all changed with the publication of The 1619 Project, a work of journalism created by Nikole Hannah-Jones, the guest on this episode of the Crosscut Talks podcast. Launched by the New York Times in 2019, the project puts Black Americans at the center of the American story, starting with the arrival of the White Lion, a ship that in 1619 carried captive Africans to the shores of what would become the United States. 

The project has become a major text for the racial reckoning that has unfolded in the past few years, and it has been met with severe resistance from some quarters, and it’s not done. Hannah-Jones published a book version of the project last fall and is currently at work on a documentary series based on the project.  

In this conversation with University of Washington professor Christopher Sebastian Parker, which took place in early May as part of the 2022 Crosscut Festival, Hannah-Jones discusses the project’s aims, what it has achieved and how she views the backlash it has received.

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Credits

Host: Mark Baumgarten

Producer: Sara Bernard

Event producers: Jake Newman, Andrea O'Meara

Engineers: Resti Bagcal, Viktoria Ralph

Power, Politics and Partisanship with Robert Gibbs and Rick Wilson

The former Obama strategist and the Lincoln Project co-founder discuss upcoming midterm elections and the 2024 presidential race.

The revelation that the U.S. Supreme Court may very well overturn Roe v. Wade this summer turned up the heat on what was already a period of intense partisan division in the United States. With continued fallout from the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection and the upcoming midterm elections, there is little indication that Democrats and Republicans will come together any time soon. 

Still, while partisan rancor may pose a threat to American democracy, politicians in both parties are leveraging it in their own attempts to build support, raise money and get things done. 

Former Republican strategist Rick Wilson and former presidential adviser Robert Gibbs are both familiar with the calculus involved in turning partisanship into political gain. But they are also aware of the threats that severe partisanship can bring. 

For this episode of the Crosscut Talks podcast, the two political strategists discuss the fight for Congress in 2022 and the White House, detail missteps in their own parties that helped create the current landscape and consider why some Americans may prefer authoritarianism to democracy.

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Credits

Host: Mark Baumgarten

Producer: Sara Bernard

Event producers: Jake Newman, Andrea O'Meara

Engineers: Resti Bagcal, Viktoria Ralph