The day started off with a simple plan to visit a hilltop with an olive farmer named Ayoub Abuhejleh in the West Bank — just to look across the valley and talk about an orchard he had not been able to access for about a month due to the conflict between Palestine and Israel.
That plan quickly unraveled when Abuhejleh and the NPR team producing a radio story about him were stopped by Israeli soldiers.
They detained Abuhejleh, and the NPR team consisting of Mary Louise Kelly, Kat Lonsdorf and SJMC alumna Erika Ryan, as well as photographer Ayman Oghanna and local producer Sawsan Khalife, waited tensely for his return.
The situation was distressing, but the team’s journalistic instincts made them keep recording.
“We now no longer have eyes on him, and we don’t know where he is or what’s happening,” says Ryan. “Because we were audio, I’m not sure if they knew we were recording.”
Fortunately, after several hours, Abuhejleh returned home safely.
The audio from that harrowing experience was crafted into a powerful radio story that earned an Edward R. Murrow Award for “Excellence in Sound.” Listen to the audio
“That was one of my first field outings with NPR. It just happened to be overseas, which is rare,” says Ryan.
“I was lucky to be there with some experienced journalists that I learned from. I was the newbie in that situation.”
Ryan got her first experience with telling stories through sound at USC.
“My first interest in audio was with Dr. Smith, she taught my podcasting class, that was one thing that made me think it was something I could do,” says Ryan. “I talked about that class when I interviewed at NPR.”
As a student, Ryan’s original goal was to become a music journalist. This led her to become the co-editor for The Mix at the Daily Gamecock.
One evening, she was in the newsroom when information came in about an impromptu vigil for Michael Brown that was being held on the Horseshoe.
No other reporters were available, so Ryan ventured out into the rain, her shoes filling with water.
Reflecting on that day, Ryan says, “There were people who were crying, and they were so emotional. This is why news matters, I thought. Maybe I should be doing news.”
Now, Ryan regularly covers hard news stories both within the United States and abroad.
She has found her niche in radio, and she is thriving in the flexible, encouraging environment that NPR provides.
About the Murrow Awards
Since 1971, the Radio Television Digital News Association has been honoring outstanding achievements in broadcast and digital journalism with the Edward R. Murrow Awards. Among the most prestigious in news, the Murrow Awards recognize local and national news stories that uphold the RTDNA Code of Ethics, demonstrate technical expertise and exemplify the importance and impact of journalism as a service to the community. Murrow Award-winning work demonstrates the excellence that Edward R. Murrow made a standard for the broadcast news profession.