Listen Frontier

The Frontier
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Listen Frontier is a podcast exploring the investigative journalism of The Frontier and featuring conversations with those on the frontlines of Oklahoma's most important stories. At The Frontier, our mission is to hold public officials accountable, give a voice to the powerless and tell the stories that others are afraid to tell, or that illuminate the lives of people in our community. We will shine a light on hypocrisy, fraud, abuse and wrongdoing at all levels in our community and state. We will delve into complex issues and explain them to our readers, arming them with the information they need to make change.

  1. JAN 21

    ‘The risk is moving too slow’: How Oklahoma's government wants AI to reshape the state's economy

    Frontier: Hey everyone. Welcome to another episode of listen frontier today. I am joined by Hart Brown, the president of artificial intelligence and transformation at Saxum. He also helped author Governor Stitt's Artificial Intelligence strategy for the state. Thanks for joining us today. I wondered if you would tell us a little bit first about yourself, your background and how you got involved in this project and in this area. Hart Brown: You bet. Coming out of school, I was doing a lot of work in what we now refer to as predictive analysis, so algorithmic based decision making, using math to help understand what's likely to happen and then make the best decisions you possibly can. I had a number of people come to me and say Hart, can you build an artificial intelligence system that can do what you do on paper in real time? I answered. I said let's find out. It sounds really interesting. At that time, there was really only one system that anybody could really use, and that was IBM Watson. And so I built an artificial intelligence system on top of IBM Watson to be able to leverage this algorithm in real time. And got very good success. Frontier: So let's talk about the governor's report a little bit. The document calls itself a forward thinking approach, which is right means, in a lot of ways, that some of it is aspirational in a sense that we're at a point where we don't exactly know where we're going to end up with AI. What are some of the concrete things that Oklahoma could do in the next six months, 12 months that are realistic to embrace AI better or better understand how it’s shaping Oklahoma? Hart Brown: It’s really important to understand that we're really talking about a longer timeline. So some elements of that are going to happen closer to a two year time frame. Some may be a little bit further out now. We're transitioning from a period of time where artificial intelligence really kind of felt like a toy. It was interesting, it was fun. We all started to use it. We downloaded the apps. We were making pictures and lots of different things. Oklahoma is in a relatively low unemployment environment, meaning it's hard for Oklahoma employers to find good people to hire, and so with that, let's use the technology. Let's grow the businesses as quickly as we can by leveraging that in a responsible and reasonable way. Frontier: Is it even possible at this point to have guardrails, or to know what the guardrails would even be? At some point, it will start to affect people's jobs. You mentioned low unemployment, people having difficulty filling some of these positions that maybe AI could replace, but at some point people's jobs will be what's being replaced. And so are there guardrails to protect workers? Or how should people approach that part of the discussion? Hart Brown: From an economic productivity perspective, I need everybody working and I need everybody using the technology. If the technology replaces people in this ecosystem, I don't get the economic value out of the system at the end of the day. And really what we're seeing in the next two to three years, whichever country maximizes its potential related to artificial intelligence, is likely to be the dominant economic country for the next 75 to 100 years. So first and foremost, I need everybody in the ecosystem being productive. It doesn't make sense for us to have a broad based disruption of the employment environment, because we don't win at the end of the day. We won't be the dominant economic country. So I'm very optimistic that if we do see that turbulence, that we have enough opportunities to resolve that before it really becomes a problem. Frontier: Looking at the strategy and at this report, if we revisit it in five or 10 years, what would success look like in Oklahoma, and what would...

    28 min

  2. 12/19/2025

    Inside the legal fight over immigration detention in Oklahoma

    Immigration detention usually happens out of public view — inside private prisons, through sealed court filings, and far from scrutiny. But in Oklahoma, those cases are starting to surface. In recent months, immigrants who’ve lived in the U.S. for years — some for decades — have been jailed for months without bond hearings, even when they have no criminal convictions and deep ties to their communities. Their only path to release has been through habeas corpus petitions filed in federal court. At the same time, Oklahoma is becoming a growing hub for immigration detention as private prison companies expand their footprint. Our reporter, Ari Fie, has been digging into these cases to understand who’s being detained, why this is happening now, and what it means for due process. I spoke with her about what she found.

    8 min

  3. 12/12/2025

    Listen Frontier: Clifton Adcock on the Real Impact of Oklahoma’s Data-Center Explosion

    For the past several months, Frontier reporter Clifton Adcock has been digging into one of the fastest-moving — and least transparent — developments in Oklahoma: the rapid rise of data centers. These facilities promise big investment, but they also bring enormous demands for power and water, and much of the planning has happened out of public view. In this week’s Q&A, Clifton walks us through how he pieced this story together: from tracking down hard-to-find utility filings to decoding dense regulatory documents and uncovering data center projects that weren’t publicly disclosed. He also talks about the challenges of explaining highly technical issues in a way readers can understand, and what surprised him most as he followed the money, energy, and incentives behind Oklahoma’s data-center boom. Read the story: Oklahoma’s data center boom is about to hit the grid — and your power bill

    16 min

  4. 10/17/2025

    Listen Frontier: Are Oklahoma classrooms too wired for learning?

    Frontier: We spoke back in the spring about the cellphone bill you ran that would remove cell phones from classrooms. Catch our listeners up on where that stands today.  Seifried: It’s been in effect for almost two months in Oklahoma, and the results and the feedback have just been amazing. I heard from schools and administrators early on, talking about the lunchrooms being louder and the hallways being more crowded. My favorite recent anecdote is library books are being checked out at a higher frequency than at this point last year, so a lot of really positive feedback. Frontier: That kind of leads us into what we're talking about today, which is you have an interim study about technology in schools. So tell us a little bit about that study and what you hope to learn from it. Seifried: Yeah, this study sort of really dovetails off of my work on removing cell phones, because as I went around the state and talked about it over the last two years, I would meet with parents who were concerned about the use of screens and laptops in their child's classrooms. And they would question if learning was happening, or how much students are using screens. And at first, I sort of didn't want to become the anti-screens girl. But I think it's a good conversation to have.  This study got to be a little bit more academic. We got into the neuroscience of how we learn and or how we don't learn. I also serve as chair of the technology committee, so I sort of get to wear these two really fascinating hats. As we're trying so desperately to increase our academic achievement, I want us to make sure that we're doing the right things. And maybe the right thing isn't the new and shiny technology or the new and shiny software, or this platform that promises the moon. Frontier: That’s not only a conversation that's taking place as it relates to schools. Right now, what's the main conversation we’re having in the state? It's AI, it's about data centers, the impact of this technology and this industry. And there is that discussion among adults, too, about the use of AI as a tool. Is it productive to give your creative juices to a computer as opposed to just doing this yourself? How much of our brain power are we giving over to computers? And does that, in a sense, make us less human? You have mentioned technology and how it should be used, with caution, as a teaching tool. And I just kind of wondered at this point in this process,  what evidence would you want to see before deciding if a specific type of technological platform or in-class technology is truly improving learning outcomes? Seifried: One of the main things that we really took away was there are a lot of things that can improve educational outcomes. Like the air conditioning, or just a little bit of extra tutoring that kind of moves the needle. But what we should be asking, really, is not, does this move the needle, but does this move the needle better than something else. So for example, if we spend $10 million on this software across the state of Oklahoma, is that going to move the needle for our students more than taking that $10 million and investing it into our teachers or our reading specialists or giving stipends to teachers who are just crushing it in the classroom? AI is an amazing tool. But you have to master those foundational educational blocks, right? You have to be able to do the hard thing first. One of our speakers likened it to learning how to drive. If you learn to drive a stick shift, and then you go to automatic, no problem. But if you start with an automatic and you go stick, you have so much more difficulty going backwards and mastering those topics. And so I just wondered, do these softwares and platforms and AI chat bots really help us learn more than a quality teacher sitting down and working with your student? Frontier: You're essentially talking about opportunity cost here. If you’ve got $10 million...

    21 min

  5. 10/08/2025

    Numbers Game: Drummond, McCall, and the road to the 2026 Oklahoma Governor election

    klahoma voters won’t choose their next governor for another year, but the Republican primary is already heating up. Recent polling from former Oklahoma House Speaker Charles McCall’s campaign suggests the race between McCall and Attorney General Gentner Drummond is closer than you might think. But as other candidates begin to join the fray, the Drummond camp says that’s not true.  The survey, conducted September 23–25, found Attorney General Gentner Drummond leading with 35% support, closely followed by House Speaker Charles McCall at 33%, while 32% of respondents remained undecided. The Frontier spoke with pollster Chris Wilson about his recent survey for the McCall campaign and Matthew Parker, Drummond’s campaign chairman, about how the candidates are positioning themselves to voters. The following is a condensed transcript of the conversation. For the full interview, listen to our podcast. The margin of error is 3.5%.

    40 min

  6. 09/15/2025

    Stitt defends Tulsa homeless crackdown as local shelter calls for empathy

    This week on Listen Frontier, we’re looking at Operation SAFE, Governor Kevin Stitt’s effort to clear homeless encampments in Tulsa with the help of the Oklahoma Highway Patrol. The Frontier sat down with Gov. Stitt, who told me the operation isn’t about solving homelessness, but about enforcing the law. He said Oklahomans are experiencing “compassion fatigue,” and that many of the people removed from encampments “didn’t want help.” We also spoke with Steven Whitaker, CEO of Tulsa’s John 3:16 Mission, who offered a different view. Whitaker acknowledged the risks of being too compassionate, but stressed that the people living on Tulsa’s streets are our neighbors, and most of them are in desperate need of empathy, shelter, and support. Together, their perspectives paint a complicated picture of homelessness in Tulsa, and the deep divide over how the state and city should respond.

    38 min

  7. 09/11/2025

    Power, water, and secrecy: Data centers are in Oklahoma. What now?

    Oklahoma is racing to attract data centers, facilities that store and process the information powering everything from streaming services to artificial intelligence, to the Sooner State. Governor Kevin Stitt has touted them as a cornerstone of economic growth, but as more projects roll into communities, residents and lawmakers are asking questions: How much water and electricity will these centers consume, and why is so much of that information kept under wraps? Cities and companies often sign nondisclosure agreements, meaning details about utility use and long-term costs are hidden from the public. That lack of transparency has fueled concern from those who worry about higher bills, strained resources, and the environmental impact of these projects. At the same time, state leaders see them as a chance to make Oklahoma a national hub for tech investment. Today on Listen Frontier, we’re joined by Representative Amanda Clinton, a Tulsa Democrat hosting an interim study on data centers, and Frontier reporter Kayla Branch, who’s been covering the issue. We’ll talk about what’s known, what’s still secret, and why the fight over data centers is really a debate about policy, accountability, and public trust.

    29 min

  8. 08/26/2025

    Tulsa’s panhandling debate: Two councilors, two perspectives

    On Wednesday, Tulsa’s City Council is set to vote on an ordinance that would limit what Tulsans can do on sidewalks and medians. The proposed ordinance comes after two incidents, one in 2023, and one in 2024, where two separate people were killed while standing in center medians. Councilor Phil Lakin, who spoke to The Frontier on Monday about the ordinance, said it was about public safety. Many medians in Tulsa are narrow, and in zones where the speed limit is above 25 miles per hour, he believes standing in the median is a safety hazard. The ordinance would also potentially apply to sidewalks that are within 18 inches of the street as well. But when it comes to enforcement, some, including City Councilor Laura Bellis, fear the ordinance will only be applied to those panhandling, and she fears fines associated with the ordinance could prove too costly. On this episode of Listen Frontier, we hear from Bellis, Lakin, and Deputy Council Administrator Sarah Davis ahead of Wednesday’s meeting. This is Listen Frontier, a podcast exploring the investigative journalism of the Frontier and featuring conversations with those on the frontlines of Oklahoma’s most important stories. Listen to us Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Stitcher. To donate to The Frontier and help support our efforts to grow investigative journalism in Oklahoma, click here.

    27 min
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About

Listen Frontier is a podcast exploring the investigative journalism of The Frontier and featuring conversations with those on the frontlines of Oklahoma's most important stories. At The Frontier, our mission is to hold public officials accountable, give a voice to the powerless and tell the stories that others are afraid to tell, or that illuminate the lives of people in our community. We will shine a light on hypocrisy, fraud, abuse and wrongdoing at all levels in our community and state. We will delve into complex issues and explain them to our readers, arming them with the information they need to make change.

Information

  • Creator
    The Frontier
  • Years Active
    2015 - 2026
  • Episodes
    127
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Copyright 2026 The Frontier
  • Show Website
    Listen Frontier