John Ryan
ReporterYear started with KUOW: 2009
KUOW environment reporter John Ryan welcomes story ideas and feedback from listeners. Email him at jryan@kuow.org or call him at 206-543-0637. For secure, confidential communication, he's at 1-401-405-1206 on the Signal messaging app, or you can send snail mail (but don't put your return address on the outside) to John Ryan, KUOW, 4518 Univ. Way NE, Seattle, WA 98105.
Good thing John was a clumsy traveler.
Otherwise his cheap microcassette recorder wouldn't have fallen out of his pocket in an Indonesian taxi, a generous BBC stringer wouldn't have lent him some professional recording gear, and he wouldn't have gotten the radio bug. But after pointing a mic at rare jungle songbirds and gong–playing grandmothers for his first radio story, there was no turning back.
He then freelanced for shows such as All Things Considered, Living on Earth, Marketplace and The World. He also continued his print career by reporting for newspapers including the Christian Science Monitor, Los Angeles Times and Seattle Daily Journal of Commerce.
In 2009, John moved back to Seattle after two exciting years covering avalanches, political intrigue and just about everything in between for KTOO FM, the NPR station in Alaska's capital city.
John has won national awards for KUOW as a freelancer (check out "As the Sound Churns") and now as a staff reporter, including the Society of Professional Journalists' Sigma Delta Chi awards for Public Service in Radio Journalism and for Investigative Reporting. He believes democracy only works when journalism holds the powerful accountable for their words and actions.
To see more of John's KUOW portfolio, visit our current site.
In addition to the stories below, John's KUOW stories from September 2012 and before are archived here.
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The Puyallup Tribe welcomed the first salmon of the year back to the Puyallup River in Tacoma on Tuesday.Strangely, perhaps, that chinook's epic journey… -
A little red fish that calls Lake Sammamish home is swimming desperately close to extinction. Officials are embarking on emergency measures to keep the… -
The Seattle Symphony will perform five original lullabies at a free Mother's Day concert this weekend. And each lullaby was composed with help from a… -
Decades after they were banned, the toxic chemicals known as PCBs keep oozing into Seattle's Duwamish River. Environmental groups say one Boeing facility… -
As the sun rose above Neah Bay one foggy morning three years ago, a boatful of anglers headed out to the Pacific Ocean to fish for halibut — something… -
Charlie Blackwood was running off three hours of sleep and seven cups of coffee when he packed up his belongings. He had been living with seven other… -
The taxi business ain’t what it used to be.That's partly why cabbies picketed at the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport on Tuesday, fighting back… -
Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the unfairest of them all?Famed is thy progressiveness, Seattle, but when it comes to taxes, it’s you.A new study… -
This may be the most Seattle of problems: people abandoning their bike share rentals on the ferry. Ian Sterling, spokesman for the Washington State… -
Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan has unveiled a dozen initiatives aimed at tackling the city's persistent carbon problem. Congestion pricing, also known as…
