Mike Kiniry
Producermkiniry@wgcu.org
Mike Kiniry is producer of Gulf Coast Live, and co-creator and host of the WGCU podcast Three Song Stories: Biography Through Music. He first joined the WGCU team in the summer of 2003 as an intern while studying Communication at Florida Gulf Coast University.
He became the first producer of Gulf Coast Live when the show launched in 2004, and also worked as the host of All Things Considered from 2004 to 2006, and the host of Morning Edition from 2006 to 2011. He then left public radio to work as PR Director for the Alliance for the Arts for five years, and was then Principled Communicator at the election integrity company Free & Fair for a year before returning to WGCU in October, 2017.
In the past Mike has been a bartender and cook at Liquid Café in downtown Fort Myers, a golf club fixer/seller at the Broken Niblick Golf Shop in Fort Myers, and a bookseller at Ives Book Shop in Fort Myers. He lives near downtown Fort Myers with his daughter, and their dog and two cats.
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Technological advances have brought much good to the world. But as ways to communicate have diversified and led to anyone being able to get their message out to the entire world, it seems undeniable that society has taken a turn toward hyper-polarization and partisanship – and the number of people – especially young people who are experiencing mental health issues has increased and the trendline is heading in the wrong direction. Our guests are part of a cross-partisan political reform group comprised a wide range of people, from elected officials and national security experts to mental health professionals and technologists who are trying to encourage change and find ways to address the negative effects of our online world. -
On April 10 WGCU hosted an event at Florida Gulf Coast University’s Water School that featured NOVA Executive Producer Chris Schmidt. That day we screened parts of the NOVA episode Weathering the Future for an audience of about 200 people. Between the segments we chatted with him, as well as two FGCU professors about issues raised in the film and the challenges we face in Southwest Florida when it comes to adapting to our changing climate. Chris talked about the challenges NOVA faces in communicating science to a broad audience, and Dr. Win Everham and Dr. Molly Nation helped tie it all together. -
A group of FGCU students is working on a project focused on addressing the loneliness epidemic amongst our senior citizen and Gen Z populations, while promoting more kindness and compassion through storytelling. The ROCK of Ages initiative seeks to address social isolation amongst older people, and diminished in-person social skills amongst younger people, by pairing students with older people to share stories, on camera, to build bridges between generations and create transformative experiences that hopefully create ripple effects of social change. -
Dr. Jerry Jackson is known to WGCU listeners as the creator and host of With the Wild Things, heard weekday mornings at 7:19 and weekday afternoons at 5:18. He’s a professor emeritus of Ecological Sciences at Florida Gulf Coast University, and a professor emeritus at Mississippi State University. Nick Penniman is a retired newspaper publisher, and he is chair emeritus of the Conservancy of Southwest Florida and a Florida Master Naturalist. He and Dr. Jackson gave a talk together at Florida Gulf Coast University last week as part of the school’s Provost’s Seminar Series titled Getting to Know the World Around You: an Illustrated Conversation” so we had them come by the studio to chat. -
Doug MacGregor has been an editorial cartoonist for more than 40 years. He got his professional start at the Norwich Bulletin in eastern Connecticut in 1980. He moved to Florida in 1988 and drew cartoons for the News Press in Fort Myers until 2011. Doug created five cartoons every week, year in and year out, for nearly a quarter century. He has donated a large collection of his original drawings (mostly pertaining to the local environment) to Florida Gulf Coast University’s “Archives & Special Collections” at the school’s Wilson G. Bradshaw Library and students have completed the process of digitizing them and the team at the Archives helps students use Doug’s work in their studies. -
A local FTC robotics team called Java the Hutts is heading to Houston next week to compete in the FIRST World Championship. Java the Hutts has been a team for eight years, with students from across Southwest Florida moving through program as some age out. This is the team’s third qualification to Worlds — they brought home the World Champion title once before in 2022. We talk with three of the Java the Hutt team members to learn about their team, the FIRST competitions, and how engaging with robotics is helping them prepare for the world ahead. -
A local FTC robotics team called Java the Hutts is heading to Houston next week to compete in the FIRST World Championship. Java the Hutts has been a team for eight years, with students from across Southwest Florida moving through program as some age out. This is the team’s third qualification to Worlds — they brought home the World Champion title once before in 2022. We talk with three of the Java the Hutt team members to learn about their team, the FIRST competitions, and how engaging with robotics is helping them prepare for the world ahead.
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Over the decades, the nonprofit Calusa Nature Center and Planetarium has introduced countless people of all ages to the natural world, and the cosmos, through educational programs. Their 105-acre site features a natural history museum with live native and teaching animals, a butterfly garden and raptor aviary, as well as exhibits about the animals, plants, and environment of Southwest Florida. And they host events like music under the stars, paint and sips, night hikes, summer camps, and even an event called Potter in the Park. We sat down in their planetarium on a Saturday morning to shine some light on the work they do and the resources they provide to the community. -
In Sally Wen Mao’s collection, NINETAILS, she reimagines the nine-tailed fox spirit from Asian folklore in a series of short stories interwoven with a novella. -
Two decades ago two young men disappeared in Naples under mysterious circumstances. Terrance Williams and Felipe Santos were both last seen with the same Collier County Sheriff’s deputy, Steven Calkins. They were both men of color in their 20s. And they were both last seen in Deputy Calkins’ patrol car. Deputy Calkins was fired after his story changed when questioned. He denied wrongdoing. He’s the only person of interest in the cases, but law enforcement never found evidence against him.
