Emily Harris has an incredible job as the Jerusalem correspondent for National Public Radio. How do you get a job like that, and how do you prepare for it in college? (Hint: You kind of don’t.) Being a radio correspondent in Jerusalem requires a pretty diverse skill set. How did college prepare Emily for her job? (Photo credit: Ahmed Abuhamda for NPR)
I know Emily tangentially, which is to say, not really at all except for email correspondence and our conversation for the show. She was a student’s of my dad’s at Lincoln HS in Portland, OR and is still in touch with him. My fondness for NPR has grown over the years from it being that background buzzing noise in my kitchen growing up, to it being the same thing now, only I tend to actually pay attention to it. At any rate, I’m fascinated by these personalities, why they do what they do, what it’s like working in a war zone, and how it is to be far away from home (if such a thing even exists as an international correspondent). I asked Emily about all this stuff last summer (yeah, it’s taken me that long to get this done) and the result is a fun and informative conversation.