Jason Samuels
Studio 20, NewsDoc
Jason Samuels is an Emmy Award-winning broadcast news and documentary producer.
Currently Jason produces prime-time documentaries for CNN. Jason's most recent work, the 90-minute documentary Obama Revealed: The Man, The President aired on CNN in September. In 2011 Jason produced the CNN documentaries Unwelcome: The Muslims Next Door and Black in America: The New Promised Land - Silicon Valley; both projects featured CNN anchor Soledad O'Brien.
Prior to joining CNN, Jason served as the executive producer in charge of documentary programming and news specials for Black Entertainment Television (2010). Before BETJason served as a senior producer for ESPN's Emmy award-winning newsmagazine E:60 (2009).
Previously Jason worked as a senior producer for ABC News (2006-2008). In that role, Jason supervised all of the digital content of ABC World News and led production of the World News Webcast with Charles Gibson, the first, live daily networknewscast produced exclusively for a digital audience. Jason also briefly served as the executive producer of the ABC World News Saturday and ABC World News Sunday broadcasts.
Prior to joining ABC News, Jason spent 11 years at NBC News (1995-2006) where he produced several award-winning long-form projects for Dateline NBC. In 2004 Jason produced the Dateline NBC documentary: A Pattern of Suspicion. This groundbreaking data-driven examination of racial profiling was awarded several of the most prestigious prizes in broadcast journalism including an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award, an RTNDA-Edward R. Murrow Award and an Investigative Reporter and Editor Award.
Jason has won numerous other awards for his work including one Emmy Award, five Emmy nominations - including three for coverage of the Hurricane Katrina disaster, a Freedom Forum Excellence in Urban Journalism Award, a Cine Golden Eagle Award, a Casey Medal for Meritorious Journalism, a New York Association of Black Journalist Awards for Overall Excellence, and an American Women in Radio and Television Grace Award. In 2008 Jason was selected to participate in the 12-month Punch Sulzberger News Media Executive Leadership Program at Columbia University, a joint business/journalism program for emerging industry leaders.
Born and raised in New York City, Jason began his career in journalism as a news writer and producer at WCVB-TV in Boston (1993). He is a graduate of the Ethical-Culture Fieldston School in New York, and received a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from Tufts University and a Master of Journalism degree from the University of California at Berkeley.
