Robyn Semien | |
|---|---|
 Semien in 2014 | |
| Alma mater | University of California, Los Angeles |
| Occupation | Producer |
| Known for | This American Life |
| Notable work | "Harper High School", "Help Wanted" |
| Awards | Peabody Award |
Robyn Semien is a television and radio producer who has worked on This American Life in radio, television and video formats.
Semien attended the University of California, Los Angeles.
Semien worked as an editor and producer of film and television, including as an associate editor on the first season of This American Life's television documentary series with Showtime, and then as a producer on the second season in 2008. Semien was also a producer on the 2012 video project, This American Life: One Night Only at BAM .
Semien joined This American Life's radio team in 2007. She's drawn notice for reporting and producing on a wide array of topics, from card-counting in blackjack [1] and her father's car (for the latter, she was the listener-voted favorite in This American Life's 400th-episode competition among the show's producers to see who could develop the best radio story based on an idea pitched by the producer's parents) [2] to race and policing [3] (named to The Atlantic's round-up of "exceptional works of journalism" from 2015), [4] treatment for young, non-offending pedophiles, [5] and school inequality and violence. With Julie Snyder and Ira Glass, Semien co-produced the acclaimed 2013 "Harper High School" two-part episode of This American Life about a Chicago high school where 29 students had been shot in the previous year. [6] The episode made "best of" lists at Slate , [7] The Atlantic , [8] Newsweek, [9] and ProPublica , [10] among others. Shortly after the episode aired, First Lady Michelle Obama visited the school, and she and President Barack Obama invited Harper High students to the White House. [11]
Semien and collaborators on the "Harper High School" episode won a Peabody Award, with judges calling the work "vivid, unblinking, poignant and sometimes gut-wrenching”; [12] the Dart Center prize for journalism and trauma (“profoundly moving” and “extraordinarily comprehensive and compassionate"); the Jack R. Howard Award for Radio In-Depth coverage; [13] an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award [14] ("truly immersive, and intercut with lively use of sound[; t]hese elements offered valuable insights"); [15] the Fred M. Hechinger Grand Prize for Distinguished Education Reporting from the Education Writers Association; [16] and the Third Coast International Audio Festival's Gold Award for best documentary. [17]
In 2014, Semien, Luke Malone and Ira Glass won Third Coast International Audio Festival's Radio Impact Award [18] for their story about "on the struggles of young, non-offending pedophiles in their teens and early 20s and what they were doing to get treatment." [19] Semien produced, Malone reported and Glass edited. For the same piece, Semien, Malone and Glass were also finalists for The Society of Professional Journalists' Deadline Club 2015 award for best "Radio or Audio Reporting" and third place in the National Headliners Award for best "Radio stations documentary or public affairs." [20]
In 2008, Semien was nominated as producer, with This American Life's television team, for the International Documentary Association's award for best continuing series. [21]
Semien is married to Damien Graef, [22] and in April 2013, together the two opened a wine store in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, called Bibber & Bell Wine and Spirits. [23] In 2016, Brooklyn Magazine named Bibber & Bell to its list of the borough's best wine shops. [24]
Kenneth Lauren Burns is an American filmmaker known for his documentary films and television series, many of which chronicle American history and culture. His work is often produced in association with WETA-TV or the National Endowment for the Humanities and distributed by PBS.
Frontline is an investigative documentary program distributed by the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) in the United States. Episodes are produced at WGBH in Boston, Massachusetts. The series has covered a variety of domestic and international issues, including terrorism, elections, environmental disasters, and other sociopolitical issues. Since its debut in 1983, Frontline has aired in the U.S. for 42 seasons, and has won critical acclaim and awards in broadcast journalism. In 2024, Frontline won its first Oscar at the 96th Academy Awards for Best Documentary Feature, "20 Days in Mariupol," made by a team of AP Ukrainian journalists. Frontline has produced over 800 documentaries from both in-house and independent filmmakers, 200 of which are available online.
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This American Life (TAL) is an American weekly hour-long radio program produced in collaboration with Chicago Public Media and hosted by Ira Glass. It is broadcast on numerous public radio stations in the United States and internationally, and is also available as a free weekly podcast. Primarily a journalistic non-fiction program, it has also featured essays, memoirs, field recordings, short fiction, and found footage. The first episode aired on November 17, 1995, under the show's original title, Your Radio Playhouse. The series was distributed by Public Radio International until June 2014, when the program became self-distributed with Public Radio Exchange delivering new episodes to public radio stations.
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Benjamin Chang Calhoun is an American radio journalist and a producer for the public radio program This American Life and the podcast Serial. Originally from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, he now lives in New Jersey. Calhoun left This American Life from 2014 to 2017 to serve as Vice President of Content and Programming at WBEZ, the NPR affiliate in Chicago. Prior to that, Calhoun produced and reported for This American Life. Calhoun has taught at Loyola University Chicago and lectured at other universities. Prior to his work on This American Life, he spent eight years as a reporter and deputy news director at WBEZ, where he covered politics and did documentary work. His work has also aired on Morning Edition, All Things Considered, Day to Day, Marketplace, and WNYC's The Takeaway and Radiolab.
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Alix Spiegel is an American public radio producer and science journalist. She currently works for This American Life. Spiegel previously hosted and produced the NPR program Invisibilia with Lulu Miller and Hanna Rosin. She was one of the early producers of This American Life, then went on to work for National Public Radio and The New York Times.
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