Emily Harris
International Correspondent Emily Harris is based in Jerusalem as part of NPR's Mideast team. Her post covers news related to Israel, the West Bank and Gaza Strip. She began this role in March of 2013.
Over her career, Harris has served in multiple roles within public media. She first joined NPR in 2000, as a general assignment reporter. A prolific reporter often filing two stories a day, Harris covered major stories including 9/11 and its aftermath, including the impact on the airline industry; and the anthrax attacks. She also covered how policies set in Washington are implemented across the country.
In 2002, Harris worked as a Special Correspondent on NOW with Bill Moyer, focusing on investigative storytelling. In 2003 Harris became NPR's Berlin Correspondent, covering Central and Eastern Europe. In that role, she reported regularly from Iraq, leading her to be a key member of the NPR team awarded a 2005 Peabody Award for coverage of the region.
Harris left NPR in December 2007 to become a host for a live daily program, Think Out Loud, on Oregon Public Broadcasting. Under her leadership Harris's team received three back to back Gracie Awards for Outstanding Talk Show, and a share in OPB's 2009 Peabody Award for the series "Hard Times." Harris's other awards include the RIAS Berlin Commission's first-place radio award in 2007 and second-place in 2006. She was a John S. Knight fellow at Stanford University in 2005-2006.
A seasoned reporter, she was asked to help train young journalist through NPR's "Next Generation" program. She also served as editorial director for Journalism Accelerator, a project to bring journalists together to share ideas and experiences; and was a writer-in-residence teaching radio writing to high school students.
One of the aspects of her work that most intrigues her is why people change their minds and what inspires them to do so.
Outside of work, Harris has drafted a screenplay about the Iraq war and for another project is collecting stories about the most difficult parts of parenting.
She has a B.A. in Russian Studies from Yale University.
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Ayelet Shaked is a secular Jew who belongs to a religious party closely tied to West Bank settlers. She's faced criticism for controversial statements about Palestinians.
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In the 1990s, Israelis and Palestinians made temporary arrangements in the West Bank as they worked toward a peace deal. The talks are now in the deep freeze, but the arrangements are entrenched.
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The two leading Palestinian factions recently agreed to end a feud and work together. But in the Gaza Strip, the wounds have not healed from a nasty bout of infighting in 2007.
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Palestinian kids in Gaza went back to school this past week in buildings damaged by the war, with children homeless and traumatized, and more than the usual overcrowding they face every year.
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NPR's Emily Harris reports on the Muslim holiday of Eid in Gaza, where one where one family traces the course of three weeks of war in broken bread, temporary shelters and mourning for their dead.
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Israel warned Palestinian residents days in advance that it planned to attack a Gaza City neighborhood. But in the cramped territory, there are few places for residents to take refuge.
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While Israelis seek refuge from Hamas rockets in ubiquitous shelters, Palestinians crowd into schools to escape Israeli airstrikes. Conditions there grow dire as the conflict drags on.
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Most social networks require users to be at least 13. But Itay Eshet's daughter, like many kids, wanted to join Facebook when she was just 10. So Eshet created a site just for younger kids, designed to protect them from bullying and other risks while teaching them to navigate social media safely.
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Ruth Calderon's first speech in parliament led some to call her the leader of a Jewish renaissance. But others view her as a real threat — to Judaism itself.
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While the U.S. is trying to calm some of Moscow's anxieties over a missile defense it wants to put in Poland and the Czech Republic, skepticism is growing in the intended host nations, as well. Russian President Vladimir Putin remains critical of U.S. plans.