Ryan Heinsius
News Director & Managing EditorRyan Heinsius joined the KNAU newsroom as executive producer in 2013 and was named news director and managing editor in 2024. As a reporter, he has covered a broad range of stories from local, state and tribal politics to education, economy, energy and public lands issues, and frequently interviews internationally known and regional musicians. Ryan is an Edward R. Murrow Award winner and a Public Media Journalists Association Award winner, and a frequent contributor to NPR's Morning Edition, All Things Considered and national newscast. He's been featured on WBUR's Here & Now among other programs.
Before making the leap to public radio, Ryan spent more than a decade in print media as the editor of an alternative weekly paper. He earned his bachelor’s degree from Northern Arizona University in political science and journalism and has also returned to teach at his alma mater.
Ryan is a Flagstaff-based musician and has performed and recorded with many bands in the Southwest. He spends as much time as possible with his family hiking, running and cycling the amazing terrain of northern Arizona and beyond.
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Leadership in the U.S. House did not include compensation for victims of radiation exposure in its current budget proposal. The program expired in June and advocates were hoping Congress would renew it before the end of the year. -
Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley is threatening to block attempts by House Republicans to only partially renew a law that compensates victims of radiation exposure. -
President Joe Biden declared the Carlisle Federal Indian Boarding School National Monument in Pennsylvania on Monday. It acknowledges the decades of trauma inflicted on tribal communities throughout the U.S. and in Arizona, which had the second-highest number of the schools in the nation. -
In June, Congress allowed a 34-year-old federal law that compensates victims of Cold War-era radiation exposure to lapse. Now, an effort is underway to pressure lawmakers to renew and expand the program before the end of the current lame-duck session. -
Votes are still being counted throughout Arizona, but initial results have yielded few major surprises in national and statewide races along with more than a dozen ballot propositions. -
For the first time in a dozen years, there's an open seat for the Coconino County recorder, which oversees early voting, the preferred method for 80% of Arizonans. It comes as election workers continue to be targets of misinformation. -
The U.S. Forest Service says it is reviewing a 1986 environmental assessment of a uranium mine near the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. -
In addition to national, state and local elections, Arizona voters have a lengthy list of at least 14 ballot propositions to vote on in this year's general election. -
The Biden-Harris administration has allocated $236 million from the 2021 Infrastructure Law to reduce wildfire risk and train firefighters across the country. -
An estimated 15,000 households on the Navajo Nation lack electricity. But efforts are underway to bring power via off-grid solar systems to residents in some of the most isolated communities there.
