The news according to Ayana Harry '01

“When I first walked into a newsroom, I thought, ‘This is for me,’” Ayana Harry ’01 said. Not everyone is fortunate enough to have such a moment of clarity, nor to have it so early in her career path. Ayana was then just a junior at Princeton.

The newsroom in question belonged to New York’s ABC Channel 7, where Ayana was an intern for “7 On Your Side,” a local news segment that sends a reporter, Tappy Phillips, into the field to resolve consumer complaints and other issues submitted by viewers — helping someone to recoup money after being overcharged by a business, for example.

“It was the best internship I could have had,” Ayana said. She recognized that she could offer the mixture of spontaneity and smarts required of a broadcast journalist. She loved the experience so much that she continued as an ABC News intern during her senior year of college.

“My first week was [during] Hurricane Katrina,” Ayana recalled. “Someone said, ‘Hey, you! Can you keep track of all the Katrina footage?’” The on-the-fly assignment morphed into something more: As she logged and distributed the Katrina video to ABC reporters, Ayana became an integral part of the news team.

So she remains, now as an associate producer for ABC’s national news desk, where she is responsible for covering stories throughout the Northeast.

“Northeast,” Ayana has discovered, is a relative term. In the last year, she has been from Massachusetts to Pennsylvania to Canada to Antigua. She was even ready to fly to Samoa for a story, but the flights didn’t work out in a way that would allow her to go. “During the month of April, I think I was in the office one day,” Ayana said.

She hasn't been in the office much over the last week, either, as she's been covering the earthquake in Haiti.

The willingness to get up and go to wherever the story is is a hallmark of a great journalist, as is a love of digging deeper to find what’s worth telling the world about.

“I like editorially covering a story,” Ayana said. “I really enjoy being in the courtroom and watching things unfold,” she added.

Ayana often heads out and shoots footage as well. When Captain Chesley Sullenberger, the pilot who successfully landed U.S. Airways flight 1549 on the surface of the Hudson River, later re-flew the route that was initially planned for that day, Ayana was behind the camera to document it. “I shot 50 to 60 percent of what we aired,” Ayana said. “It doesn’t feel like [the footage] goes off to outer space.”

When not shooting, Ayana might be updating the news bureau in New York, coordinating information with ABC’s affiliate stations or writing articles for ABC online. It’s a busy life, but it’s one she enjoys. She’s certain that no matter how hard it might be to get a story, broadcasting the news is meaningful.

“It’s information that helps people understand their world,” Ayana said.