Oklahoma Engaged

This is the Manager’s Minute.

An essential element of our work at KGOU involves delivering news and information to help each person become a better educated citizen. That’s especially important now – an election year when the global pandemic and economic turmoil are affecting all of us. 

For the past five years, Roger Knak, the CEO of Fairview Regional Medical Center, has been trying to keep his critical access hospital in rural Oklahoma afloat. The years have been a mixed bag of positive and negative financial margins. The cost to operate the hospital has been more than the revenue from patients.

The campaigns on both sides of State Question 802 have made numerous claims about the potential benefits and perils of Medicaid expansion. Independent producer Dan Epstein checked out some of those claims for Oklahoma Engaged.

If State Question 802 passes, approximately 200,000 more people will be eligible for SoonerCare, the state’s Medicaid program. Whether SoonerCare can handle the increased patient population is another question.

Campaign signs are appearing along roadways and advertisements are popping up on screens of all kinds as voters prepare to decide on expanding Medicaid coverage in Oklahoma. The June 30th election for state question 802 was a long time coming.

This is the Manager’s Minute.

2020 is an election year, so you can expect us to deliver meaningful citizen-centered public service reporting on the races and attitudes of Oklahoma voters through Oklahoma Engaged.

Also this year, KGOU plans to focus on community engagement reporting that involves people in diverse communities and acts on suggestions from our network of listeners.

This is the Manager’s Minute.

Public radio stations KGOU, KOSU, KCCU and KWGS have now concluded our collaborative Oklahoma Engaged election reporting project, which received a regional Edward R. Murrow Award for Excellence in Innovation.

Multiple polls show the majority of Oklahoma voters support criminal justice reforms.

Survey data commissioned by Oklahoma Public Radio stations for the Oklahoma Engaged Project also suggest a majority of voters believe the state’s sentencing laws need to be reworked.

Oklahoma is now the number one incarcerator in the country, but only one bill targeting prison population control reached the governor’s desk this session.

This is the Manager’s Minute.

KGOU and StateImpact Oklahoma reporters were big winners when the names were announced in the latest Oklahoma journalism awards competition – the Society of Professional Journalists.

All told, KGOU and StateImpact reporters captured 15 of the 24 radio awards.

StateImpact earned six awards, including firsts won by Quinton Chandler, Jackie Fortier, Emily Wendler and Joe Wertz, for Government and Criminal Justice Reporting, Feature Reporting, Diversity Reporting and Special Program.

This is the Manager’s Minute.

It all began with an idea: do election reporting designed to serve the public more than candidates by focusing on issues important to people.

So, we brought together our public radio partners – KGOU, KOSU, KWGS and KCCU – to provide in-depth coverage of the 2018 elections and called it Oklahoma Engaged: Project Public Office.

With major funding from the Ethics & Excellence in Journalism Foundation and the Kirkpatrick Foundation we knew we had the resources to do something special.  We did.

This is the Manager’s Minute.

In 2018, KGOU and our public radio partners covered Oklahoma politics through Oklahoma Engaged, funded by the Ethics & Excellence in Journalism Foundation and the Kirkpatrick Foundation.

The elections are over, but our voter-focused coverage is not.

Oklahoma Engaged continues during this legislative session.

The midterm election is Tuesday and voters across Oklahoma are heading to the polls to decide on local, state and federal races. Election officials have recorded a surge people registering for the 2018 midterms.

Kateleigh Mills interviewed three different Oklahomans from very different backgrounds on why they think voting is important.

On this episode of Capitol Insider, Dr. Amy Goodin of OU Poll joins KGOU’s Dick Pryor and eCapitol’s Shawn Ashley to discuss polling and focus groups commissioned for Oklahoma Engaged, a collaboration between NPR member stations in Oklahoma. Goodin talks about the general “disillusionment” of voters throughout the state, as well as some of their ideas about how to fund public education, the leading political concern in the 2018 election cycle.

Oklahoma’s claim to the buckle of the Bible belt is widely accepted as true. But when it comes to faith and voting, new research shows more residents are letting their political values influence the church they choose.

At a recent weekly Sunday morning donut hour at Faith United Methodist Church in Tulsa, people are busy talking about the start of school and the college football season while getting their weekly dose of juice, coffee and donuts.