RANGE

Luke is back and a rare RANGE reporter appearance unlocked! Our split-custody Murrow Fellow who works out of Newport, WA came to talk shop on the pod about rural journalism in a border community. And our City Hall reporter Erin dove in to homelessness statistics and an arrest at council.

Former crime reporter Valerie Osier interviewed two of RANGE’s reporters about local news gone national. She talked to Erin Sellers about their story on a restrictive Idaho law and the future of gender-affirming care nationwide, and the other Aaron about his easy-to-digest breakdown on the now viral Coeur d’Alene Town Hall that ended with men in black dragging a woman out of the building for voicing her dissenting views. Relevant reading:

•  Red states could preview gender-affirming care under Trump: An Idaho law banning state insurance from covering gender-affirming care could foreshadow a national ban on Medicaid spending for transgender care, by Erin Sellers
• A debrief of the now-infamous CDA town hall: A local extremism reporter’s guide to what happened in the viral video of a woman being dragged out of an Idaho town hall by a group of men with no official uniforms, by Aaron Hedge

Erin and Aaron practiced one of a journalist’s most important skills — interviewing — by asking questions about each other’s coverage of the 2025 Washington State Legislative Session. Erin talked about a bill that would require doctors to give patients increased information about pain management options before IUD procedures, and Aaron talked about fiscal notes and how they can be weaponized to kill important bills. Relevant reading:

• ‘Scissors, scissors’: Washington patients could soon have informed consent for IUD insertions, by Erin Sellers
• 20+ WA state bills to keep an eye on: Workers’ rights, protections for undocumented immigrants and queer kids, reproductive justice, voting access for incarcerated people, and a whole lot more this Washington legislative session, by the RANGE staff

Do you have questions about local government? Wondering who to complain to about an issue in your neighborhood? Wondering which agency governs certain things? Wondering why something is happening or how much it costs? Email us at [email protected] with your questions, and we’ll try and answer them next week!

Erin and Aaron welcomed on guest Eliza Billingham, The Inlander’s City Hall reporter, for an hour of Journos on Journos, interviewing each other about some of the biggest stories of the week: Billingham’s piece on Community Court and Sellers’ story on a City Council resolution in solidarity with undocumented immigrants, recommitting the city to following state law. Relevant reading linked below!

• Spokane’s Community Court handles most nonviolent offenses downtown. While arrests increase, founders say improving quality of life is “not an easy fix.” – Eliza Billingham, The Inlander.
• Solidarity, if not sanctuary: The Spokane City Council showed their solidarity with the immigrant community by promising to continue to follow state law, but opposition feared it created a false sense of security. – Erin Sellers, RANGE

The whole RANGE team sat down to discuss how they're approaching news coverage during the Trump administration, ongoing immigration cases they're following and County Commissioner Al French's commitment to divesting his stocks in PFAS chemical manufacturers. Relevant reading linked below!

• Know your immigration rights: Spokane is within 100 miles of a border, which puts our community at greater risk of mass deportations. It’s time to brush up on your rights, and how to protect your neighbors.
• Immigration officials are arresting people in Washington and warehousing them in Idaho: At least four people arrested in Spokane County, one for unlawful border crossing, were transported and held for several days at the Kootenai County Jail.
• ‘Daunting’: Uncertainty in Spokane as Trump threatens local officials who don’t aid deportations, but state law is clear for schools, hospitals and police
• Hundreds of refugees set to resettle in Spokane could be stopped by day-one executive orders from Trump administration.
• ‘Our communities are truly at risk’: Washington advocacy groups urge state leaders to defy federal deportation policies following surprise immigration raids in California.
• Commissioner French pledges to sell family stock in ‘forever chemicals’ manufacturers: The county commissioner, who says the investments belonged to his mother and were willed to him, has been the target of outcry in public meetings over nondisclosure of PFAS contamination.

Do you have questions about local government? Wondering who to complain to about an issue in your neighborhood? Wondering which agency governs certain things? Wondering why something is happening or how much it costs? Email us at [email protected] with your questions, and we’ll try and answer them next week!

On this week’s episode of the pod, Luke, Erin and Aaron Hedge sat down with Sam Smith of Manzanita House to do a civics-for-adults training on your immigration rights and how to exercise them. Then, we played a pre-made package by Erin on a group of local teens who traveled to Olympia to lobby the state legislature for policies to shield transgender students, update reproductive care Medicaid rates and protect people who lose pregnancies from criminal prosecution. Relevant reading from both us and other outlets linked below!

• Know your immigration rights: Spokane is within 100 miles of a border, which puts our community at greater risk of mass deportations. It’s time to brush up on your rights, and how to protect your neighbors.
• On day one, Trump pits his administration against transgender people: Trump’s administration will likely run into legal trouble as it implements policies on federal identity documents and housing in federal prisons.
• The teens are alright: Five local teens made the long trek down to Olympia to lobby state legislators for policies to shield transgender students, update reproductive care Medicaid rates and protect people who lose pregnancies from criminal prosecution.
• ‘Daunting’: Uncertainty in Spokane as Trump threatens local officials who don’t aid deportations, but state law is clear for schools, hospitals and police
• Hundreds of refugees set to resettle in Spokane could be stopped by day-one executive orders from Trump administration
• ‘Our communities are truly at risk’: Washington advocacy groups urge state leaders to defy federal deportation policies following surprise immigration raids in California

Val, Luke and Aaron Hedge talked about deconstructing from Christianity, TikTok (and the potential ban) and how those two wildly different things relate — and the lessons on community that these reflections can give us.

03:49 Brief overview of the latest TikTok news

07:16 Defining Deconstruction in Christianity

13:26 Personal Stories of Faith and Doubt

25:20 Navigating Faith and Doubt Without Social Media

32:00 Community in Rural Spaces

37:12 Political Influence in Church

42:06 Discovering TikTok and New Perspectives

47:28 Challenges and Reflections on Deconstruction

Additional reading:

BBC: What does Trump's executive order mean for TikTok and who might buy it?

AP News: How TikTok grew from a fun app for teens into a potential national security threat

User Mag: The Great Creator Reset

This week on Free RANGE, Luke and both Erin/Aarons discussed an unexpected nationalist rabbit hole Hedge dove down, the contours of a new bike box program for people biking to City Hall (Spoiler alert, it's not all it's cracked up to be) and a Sellers deep-dive into numbers for the city's new homeless scatter sites, focusing on one that's opened beds for 30 medically fragile unhoused people at Westminster United Church of Christ.

Luke was out doing ~boss-coded things~ so co-host Erin interviewed fellow RANGE reporter Aaron Hedge on his newest big story: “A burning question for police: Does ‘deescalation’ mean ‘up to lethal force’?

If you’re not a big fan of reading 4k word stories, but you want to know about how Spokane’s police force — the third deadliest per capita in the nation — thinks about use-of-force and deescalation techniques, listen now!

The whole gang discusses our news year resolutions, including but not limited to: striving for better work-life balance, engaging more deeply with community, and doing more labor, rural and culture reporting.

00:00 Intro

01:03 Holiday Break Recap

04:33 Personal and Team Goals for the Year

06:39 Labor Reporting and Community Engagement

21:05 Connecting community desires with coverage

27:38 Focusing on police accountability

30:02 Forever Chemicals

31:19 Rural reporting, union busting, and rural union busting reporting

38:22 Engaging with Art and Culture

40:24 Once more re: community connections and support

48:28 Final Thoughts