Adriano Schmid was named VP of content for PBS Kids.
Schmid will join the team this month and report to Sara DeWitt, SVP and GM of PBS Kids.
Schmid most recently worked as senior director of development and production for Warner Bros. Discovery, where he focused on multilingual programming for Latin American and U.S. Hispanic markets. He worked for Discovery before it merged with WarnerMedia as director of production and senior producer. He was also a producer for HBO Brazil in the 1990s.
Laura Barrón-López was named White House correspondent for PBS NewsHour.
Barrón-López starts the job this month and succeeds Yamiche Alcindor, who left the program to join NBC News. Barrón-López will continue contributing to CNN as a political analyst, a job she’s had since 2019, but she’s leaving her role as a White House correspondent for Politico.
Barrón-López joined Politico in 2018 as a national political reporter. Before that, she covered Democrats in Congress for the Washington Examiner. She’s also reported on Congress for HuffPost and energy and environment for The Hill.
Sarah Glover joins WHYY next month as VP of news and civic dialogue.
Glover succeeds Sandra Clark, who left the Philadelphia station last year to become CEO of StoryCorps.
Glover most recently worked as managing editor for Minnesota Public Radio’s MPR News. Before joining MPR last year, she managed social media strategy for NBC Owned Television Stations. Glover has also been a photographer for the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Philadelphia Daily News. She served two terms as president of the National Association of Black Journalists from 2015–19.
Jennifer Kho was named executive editor for the Chicago-Sun Times, the newspaper acquired by Chicago Public Media at the end of January.
Kho most recently worked as VP of journalism and information equity for DoGoodery, a consulting agency. Her previous jobs include U.S. managing editor for the Guardian and managing editor and director of strategic innovation for HuffPost.
“I couldn’t be more excited to join the historic Chicago Sun-Times at this pivotal moment, with its new public media ownership, to create a strong sense of connection and community throughout Chicago,” Kho said in a news release. “I’m determined to build on the paper’s incomparable legacy and make the most of this huge opportunity to create a new model of community-supported journalism as an inclusive, trusted source of cohesion, empathy, and positive change.”
Create Cooking Challenge selected Adam Lambay of St. Louis, Mo., and Dennis Perez of Tampa, Fla., to produce and star in digital shorts featuring family recipes.
Lambay, executive chef at a Hilton Hotel in St. Louis, won the grand prize in American Public Television’s talent-scouting contest. Lambay will receive $4,000 and production equipment to produce a series of 10 two-minute videos for CreateTV.com, the website for Create, public TV’s multicast channel featuring how-to and lifestyle programming.
Lambay grew up in a family that celebrated both Indian and German cuisines. He plans to feature “Indian-inspired” recipes that represent “a sort of ‘fusion with recipes that are more familiar to the standard diner,’” according to APT’s news release announcing the winners Wednesday. His winning video features Moka with Pupper, a variation of scrambled eggs.
Perez won Second Prize, which comes with $1,000 and production equipment to create three digital video shorts. Perez works in IT and software development and shoots videos of himself “tinkering” in the kitchen as a hobby. He grew up in a multi-generational household with Cuban culinary traditions. His video features Cuban Picadillo.
This year’s contest, APT’s fourth, sought video submissions of contestants presenting treasured family recipes. APT received more than 110 original videos and tapped stars of Create’s cooking shows — Kevin Belton, Pati Jinich, Diane Kochilas, Nick Stellino and Martin Yan — to select the winners. New series from Lambay and Perez are expected to release this fall.
In addition to the prize winners, contestants in ten states were selected as finalists. Videos of winners and some finalists, along with videos shared by the judges, will be featured in a special collection of heritage recipes on CreateTV.com, according to APT.
Content
Dan Protess, an EP who oversaw TV series including Chicago Stories, Firsthand and 10 That Changed America for WTTW in Chicago, has left the station to launch an independent communications company. Protess Communications will produce documentaries and TV series for broadcast and streaming and will also offer consulting services, according to a news release announcing his new venture. Protess joined WTTW in 1999. “There are so many stories that I feel compelled to tell — probably more than I can possibly tell in my lifetime,” Protess said in the release. “I’m excited to partner with talented people in Chicago and beyond who share my belief in the power of good storytelling to change perceptions, and change the world.”
Adeshina Emmanuel was hired as managing editor for the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting at Louisville Public Media. Emmanuel most recently worked as editor-in-chief of Injustice Watch, an investigative newsroom in Chicago. He has also been a reporter for Chalkbeat, the Chicago Reporter and DNAinfo in Chicago.
Colorado Public Radio hired Chandra Thomas Whitfield as host and producer for its daily interview program Colorado Matters. She most recently worked as a host and producer for In The Gap, a podcast produced by In These Times magazine. Whitfield, co-founder of the Center for Independent Journalists, has also been an ethics and justice investigative journalism fellow at the Schuster Institute at Brandeis University and an education reporting fellow for the Education Writers Association.
David Epstein was hired as a meteorologist for GBH in Boston. He will contribute to discussions about the weather and climate change during Morning Edition broadcasts and will provide breaking news weather updates during snowstorms and severe weather events. Epstein departs his post as a meteorologist for WBUR in Boston but plans to continue working with the Boston Globe and CBS Boston.
Jonathan Wilson signs off June 16 as local host of All Things Considered for WAMU in Washington, D.C., to become associate director of communications for the Federation of American Scientists. Wilson joined WAMU in 2008 as a youth voices coordinator and has also been a reporter and fill-in anchor. He started the afternoon host position in 2015 and was also the “driving force” behind WAMU’s weekly arts and culture segment, “Get Out There,” according to a message to members written by Membership Director Brian Colombo. WAMU will conduct a search for Wilson’s successor.
Governance
Adrienne Fairwell, GM for Arizona PBS, was elected to the board of trustees for America’s Public Television Stations. Fairwell has led Arizona PBS since April 2021. She previously worked as assistant GM and was also a VP for South Carolina ETV and South Carolina Public Radio.
Fellowships
American Documentary, the production company behind public television’s POV and America ReFramed, selected seventeen independent filmmakers for the fifth annual Wyncote Fellowship program. The fellowships help independent filmmakers learn how to navigate the public media landscape through a program that includes one-on-one meetings, group sessions, networking events and panel discussions with experts in public broadcasting. (Current receives support from the Wyncote Foundation). The filmmakers selected are:
- Margot Bowman, whose documentary short Coming Home had its world premiere at SXSW this year.
- Josh Chuck, director of the UPS Community Internship in San Francisco and co-director and producer of the 2019 documentary Chinatown Rising.
- Harry Chuck, father to Josh and co-director and producer for Chinatown Rising. Footage he shot as a student activist in 1981 helped create the film. Chuck was also co-founder of the Chinatown Coalition for Better Housing and was appointed by five mayors to San Francisco commissions.
- Reid Davenport, whose debut documentary I Didn’t See You There premiered at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival and won the Best Directing Award in the U.S. Documentary Competition.
- Laura Green, whose debut documentary The Providers aired on Independent Lens in 2019. She was also an editor for the documentary When I Write It, which premiered at Tribeca Film Festival and aired on POV. Green is an assistant professor at San Francisco State University.
- Hazel Gurland-Pooler, who directed 10 episodes of PBS’ primetime celebrity genealogy series, Finding Your Roots, hosted by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Gurland-Pooler also co-produced the six-hour PBS series The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross. Her debut 2023 documentary Storming Caesars Palace will broadcast nationally on PBS.
- Julie Ha, former editor-in-chief of KoreAm Journal, a national Korean American magazine. Her first documentary, Free Chol Soo Lee, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival this year.
- Dru Holley, whose documentary Buffalo Soldiers: Fighting on Two Fronts premiered this year. Holley is also working on a new film called New Slave.
- Nyjia July, a former CPB diversity fellow with the Center for Asian American Media, whose documentary Just Us premiered this year. She is working on Listen To My Heartbeat, a film about gentrification in Washington, D.C., and Go-Go music.
- Ann Kaneko, an Emmy winner whose credits include Manzanar, Diverted: When Water Becomes Dust; A Flicker in Eternity; Against The Grain: An Artist’s Survival Guide to Peru and Overstay. She was a Fulbright fellow and has received funding from JustFilms at the Ford Foundation, CAAM, Firelight Media and Chicken and Egg.
- Iyabo Kwayna, an assistant professor at Dartmouth College, who has directed photography for fiction films and worked as director and co-cinematographer for documentaries.
- Zaire Love, leader of her studio Creative Cornbread, who directed the documentary short Slice.
- Naim Naif, who co-directed Coming Home, the documentary short that premiered at SXSW this year, with Bowman. He was also a producer for HBO’s How To With John Wilson.
- Orion Pahl, whose film Bury Me at Taylor Hollow is currently part of public TV series Reel South’s seventh season.
- Kevin Shaw, who was a segment director and cinematographer on America to Me and provided additional cinematography on City So Real. Shaw’s debut documentary The Street Stops Here aired nationally on public television and ESPN.
- Débora Souza Silva, a recipient of the Les Payne Founder’s Award from the National Association of Black Journalists and the New York Times Institute Fellowship. She previously worked as a television reporter in Brazil before moving to pursue a master’s degree in journalism at the University of California, Berkeley. Her debut documentary Black Mothers Love & Resist, premiered this year.
- Asha Stuart, who produced a documentary short for National Geographic and is creating a five-part series called Black America with Asha Stuart.
Current’s Karen Everhart contributed reporting to this column.
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