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Ryan Famuliner

Former KBIA News Director (Aug 2014 - Aug 2023); Assistant News Director (2011 - Aug 2014)

Ryan served as the KBIA News Director from February 2011 to September 2023

Ryan Famuliner joined KBIA in February 2011. Ryan previously worked as a general assignment reporter and videographer at WNDU-TV in South Bend, Ind. and as a reporter and anchor at the Missourinet radio network in Jefferson City, MO. He’s reported nationally on NPR and WNYC’s The Takeaway.

In addition to scores of state and regional awards, he’s won multiple national Sigma Delta Chi, Edward R. Murrow and PRNDI Awards for his reporting and editing work. Under his guidance as News Director, KBIA also won the General Excellence Award in the Online News Association’s Online Journalism Awards in 2015.

Ryan created the state government data project Access Missouri, using grant funding from the University of Missouri, the Knight Foundation Prototype Fund, and the Reynolds Journalism Institute. He’s overseen or contributed to numerous collaborative projects across the University newsrooms, including the short documentary project My Life, My Town and partnerships with VOX Magazine and Missouri Business Alert. He’s also overseen KBIA’s participation in numerous external partnerships, including the multi-state, multi-station NPR reporting collaborations Harvest Public Media and Side Effects Public Media.

Ryan and his wife, Kelly, hail from the Kansas City and St. Louis areas, respectively, finding Columbia is a fantastic place to compromise. They spend an unhealthy amount of time at flea markets and junk shops, and they’re about a halfway through their MLB ballpark tour. 

  • On this final episode of the season, Stephanie Shonekan brought in a special guest: her daughter, Ojurere Shonekan. Together, they unpack “Emotion,” a song by the Bee Gees released in 1994. Destiny’s Child covered it in 2001. The song is a vulnerable confession that the loss of a relationship is taking a serious emotional toll. As Stephanie and Ojurere discuss the song and its reinterpretation from disco to R&B, they take some time to reflect on their own shared memories of loss.
  • Stephanie Shonekan sat down with her sister dean, Kimberly Griffin, to talk about “Lately,” a classic breakup song that Stevie Wonder released in 1980. The song itself is a crushing glimpse into a relationship that’s slowly becoming one-sided. And when Jodeci covered the song in 1993, the group members infused it with their own range of emotion (because there’s lots of it to go around during a breakup, even the one-sided kind). In this episode, Stephanie and Kimberly break down the artists’ different approaches to “Lately” and reminisce over the era of ‘90s boy groups.
  • On this episode, Tom Flynn joins host Stephanie Shonekan to talk about “You Can’t Hurry Love,” an original song by The Supremes that Phil Collins covered in 1982. Though the songs were released a couple decades apart, the message is timeless – and, perhaps a bit frustrating: love takes time. Tom and Stephanie discuss their memories of youth, wanting love and how the song can stand as a light-hearted reminder to hold on.
  • Heather Gray joins Stephanie Shonekan during this episode to discuss the Bette Midler and Eddie and Gerald Levert versions of “Wind Beneath My Wings,” a song about love, death and what it does to those who live on. It’s a ballad that especially resonates with people who lost loved ones to the September 11 attacks in 2001. And in this episode, Stephanie and Heather also discuss how this song helps them treasure their relationships with their parents.
  • The third season of Cover Story with Stephanie Shonekan is kicking off with a guest who’s pretty familiar with the show by now: our recording engineer, Nat Kuhn. Nat and Stephanie discuss “Killing Me Softly” and the power music holds to make us feel known, even at a level that’s surprisingly personal. Plus, Nat plugs in his bass to bring you an in-studio performance that mashes up elements of both Roberta Flack and The Fugees’ versions of the song.
  • Regional news coverage from the KBIA newsroom.
  • This episode is dedicated to the memory of George Warren. Host Stephanie Shonekan chats with her good friend, Brian Booton about a song that’s very personal to him - “I’m Here" by Fantasia and Cynthia Erivo.
  • This is Cover Story with Stephanie Shonekan, a podcast where we take apart the song covers we love and take a deep dive into the stories behind them. Today, I'm chatting with special guest Jeremy Root about “Respect” Otis Redding and Aretha Franklin
  • This is Cover Story with Stephanie Shonekan, a podcast where we take apart the song covers we love and take a deep dive into the stories behind them. Today, I'm chatting with special guest Sheri-Marie Harrison about “Everything I Own” by Ken Booth and Bread
  • This is Cover Story with Stephanie Shonekan, a podcast where we take apart the song covers we love and take a deep dive into the stories behind them. Today, I'm chatting with special guest Ian Chang about “Ghost of Tom Joad” by Bruce Springsteen and Rage Against the Machine