Mike Thompson
Director of RadioMike Thompson spends much of his time correcting people who mispronounce the name of his hometown – Worcester, Massachusetts. Mike studied broadcast journalism at Syracuse University when he was not running in circles – as a distance runner on the SU track team.
Mike has worked in public and commercial radio and television in New York, Massachusetts, and Ohio earning numerous awards for investigative, enterprising, and feature reporting.
Mike earned an MBA from Ohio State and uses that knowledge to program 89.7 NPR News and manage Ohio’s best radio news staff. At home it’s Mike’s wife Mary who puts up with him.
They have teenage twins- William and Madeleine. Because Will and Maddie now want very little to do with their father, Mike has found the time to resume his running career and competes in the Columbus Marathon and other races. (By the way it’s WUH-Ster or WUH-Stah in the vernacular.)
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Midwesterners have cornered the market on vice presidential candidates for the 2024 election. This week Vice President Kamala Harris named Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate. Walz’s selection follows former President Donald Trump naming Ohio U.S. Senator JD Vance as his running mate. Joining us to discuss the issue is another proud midwesterner and political expert, Ohio State University political scientist Paul Beck. -
To get a handle on how this is playing out in Ohio, we talked to four veteran political observers: progressive activist Morgan Harper, Republican strategist Terry Casey, Ohio Public Radio reporter Jo Ingles and Cleveland.com reporter Andrew Tobias. -
Ohio House Speaker Jason Stephens floated the idea of eliminating term limits for the state's lawmakers last week. We take a closer look at term limits with Democratic strategist and lobbyist Derrick Clay. -
Ohio voters overwhelmingly passed ballot measures for abortion and reproductive rights, as well as the legalization of marijuana for recreational use. We take a look at the results and talk about where we go from here with Anna Staver, the host of WOSU's "All Sides with Anna Staver." -
Nearly four in 10 voters came out in the heat of late July and early August to reject Issue 1. On this week's episode of Snollygoster, Ohio's politics podcast from WOSU, host Mike Thompson talks with supporters and opponents about the next steps. -
On this week's episode of Snollygoster, Ohio's politics podcast from WOSU, hosts Mike Thompson and Steve Brown discuss the messaging around Issue 1, which could raise the threshold to change the Ohio Constitution. -
Two Republican senators introduced a bill to bring back an August special election to allow for votes on constitutional amendments, but only those proposed by state lawmakers. -
Whether it was the November election, unconstitutional legislative maps or the fight over abortion rights, there were a lot of stories that kept on giving throughout 2022. In this week's episode of Snollygoster, Ohio's politics podcast from WOSU, hosts Mike Thompson and Steve Brown sorts through the biggest political stories in Ohio this year. -
Activists on both sides of the abortion issue this week swarmed the Indiana Statehouse to rail against or cheer on a bill that would ban most abortions in our neighbor to the west. The debate provides a preview of what’s to come when Ohio lawmakers take up the issue. -
Democrat Tim Ryan has maintained a high-profile presence in Ohio's U.S. Senate race since the May primary, while the Republican nominee J.D. Vance has been laying low.
