Burt Harrison received degrees from Emporia State University in Emporia, Kansas, and the University of Denver in Denver, Colorado. While in Kansas, he worked for local newspapers. Harrison's work in radio began in Colorado where he wrote a weekly science commentary, free-lanced for the Rocky Mountain Radio Council, and ran a couple of commercial radio stations in southern Colorado. He was also a member of the University of Denver faculty.

In 1949, Harrison joined Allen Miller at KWSU, Washington State University at Pullman's radio station, and became an Associate Professor of Communications at Washington State University. He took on the job of station manager of KWSU in 1959 and remained at this post until he retired from KWSU in 1976. During this period, he served on the boards of the National Association of Educational Broadcasters, National Educational Radio, and the Association of Public Radio Stations. He also lobbied for the inclusion of radio in the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967.

Upon retirement from KWSU, he and his wife of thirty-six years, Dee (Nadine), taped forty-two oral history interviews for the Public Radio Oral History Project which was funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. He was also a Fulbright Lecturer at Chiengmai University in Chiengmai, Thailand, during this same period, 1977 to 1978. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting presented him with the first Edward R. Murrow Award in 1977. The Washington State Association of Broadcasters also honored Harrison with the 1987 Broadcaster of the Year Award.

Burt Harrison died in 2004.

The Burt Harrison Papers consists of audio cassettes, verbatim and final transcripts of oral history interviews by Burt and Dee Harrison with various significant figures in public radio for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting funded Public Radio Oral History Project. The interviewees discuss their particular role in and memories of public radio including such events such as the creation of National Public Radio.

The Burt Harrison Papers was donated to the National Public Broadcasting Archives, University of Maryland Libraries by Burt Harrison in June of 1991 and in June of 1993.