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Michele Mitchell (journalist)

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Michele Mitchell is an American filmmaker, journalist and author best known for her on-camera reporting for PBS and CNN Headline News and her documentaries "Haiti: Where Did the Money Go?" (PBS, 2013) and "The Uncondemned" (2016).

She grew up in Yorba Linda, California, and attended Esperanza High School, where she ran track and cross country, and wrote for the school newspaper and the youth section of The Los Angeles Times. She attended Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, where she earned a BSJ and MSJ in 1992. Throughout college, she wrote sports for the Chicago Tribune. Michele was a member of Delta Zeta sorority. Her first job was on Capitol Hill, where she was the youngest congressional communications director, for Rep. Pete Geren (D-TX), who became the Secretary of the Army for Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama.

Her journalism career began during the height of the "Generation X" political trend,[1] which she wrote about in 1998 in her first book, A New Kind of Party Animal: How the Young Are Changing Politics As Usual (Simon & Schuster).[2] The book led to a job at CNN Headline News as a political analyst [3] for the 2000 election. In 2001, she became the political anchor at Headline News, covering daily political stories and, post-9/11, she filed one of the last interviews given by the mujahadeen Abdul Haq. She particularly emphasized the Patriot Act, which earned her the verbal disdain of Attorney General John Ashcroft's staff and frequent appearances on Politically Incorrect. She left Headline News in 2003 after her second novel was published, but returned to television on Now with Bill Moyers on PBS. There, she filed investigative stories on the war on terror, vote fraud, women and the economy, and the Abramoff scandal.

In 2010, she began working on her own web series, tracking what happened to the money donated by private US citizens to major US charities after the massive earthquake in Haiti. The "Haiti: Where Did the Money Go?" web series debuted on social media in January 2011. She would then produce and direct a television documentary, also called "Haiti: Where Did the Money Go?" [4] television documentary "Where Did the Money Go" The film, which aired over 1,000 times in the United States on PBS stations generated controversy [5] when the American Red Cross attacked it as "inaccurate."[6] However, the film was widely embraced, both critically and also by the Haitian community,[7] activists,[8] aid workers and Members of Congress. In 2013, the film won many awards, including a Gracie Award for Outstanding Investigative Program,[9] a CINE Golden Eagle,[10] a CINE Special Jury Award for Best Investigative Documentary and won the 2013 National Edward R. Murrow Award for Best TV Documentary.[11] It was also screened at the 2013 Miami Women's International Film Festival where it won Best Documentary Short.

In 2013, she began filming The Uncondemned with co-director Nick Louvel, a documentary about the first time rape was prosecuted as a war crime during the Rwanda genocide. In April 2015, she gave a TedX talk called "What's Rape's Brand" [12] at TedXNavesink which discusses the topic of the film. The documentary was selected by the Hamptons International Film Festival to make its world premiere in October. It was named the Brizzolara Family Foundation Award Winner for a Film in Conflict & Resolution. On September 24, 2015, co-director Louvel was killed in a single-car accident hours after hand-delivering the film to the festival.[13] The documentary would also win the Rabinowitz & Grant Award for Social Justice.

In June 2016, the final cut of the film made its debut at the New York Human Rights Watch Film Festival. Its US theatrical release is slated for the fall of 2016.

She is the recipient of the Gracie Awards and also received an honorable citation from the Overseas Press Awards[14] for her coverage of Nepalese girls sold into indentured servitude.[15] She also serves on the advisory board of the Authors Guild of America, Amman Imman [16] and BYKids. She has reported extensively from Afghanistan, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Jordan, West Bank, Israel, Lebanon, Libya and Morocco and most of the 50 states.

Selected works

  • A New Kind of Party Animal: How the Young Are Changing Politics as Usual (1998) ISBN 0-684-83697-1
  • The Latest Bombshell (2003) ISBN 0-452-28544-5
  • Our Girl in Washington (2006) ISBN 0-452-28607-7

References

  1. ^ Huntley, Mark (28 September 2004). "Decoding Gen-X Values". The New York Sun. Retrieved 27 August 2012.
  2. ^ Satin, Mark. "The Cool Diffidence and Passionate Realism of the Rising Generation". Radical Middle Newsletter. Retrieved March 2003. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)
  3. ^ http://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/article/CNN-Spins-Out-of-Control-With-Never-Ending-Story-2723150.php
  4. ^ Johns, Lindsay (20 March 2012). "Haiti: Where Did the Money Go....?". Daily Mail. London. Retrieved 27 August 2012.
  5. ^ Bassett, Laura (24 January 2012). "Red Cross Responds to Documentary's Charges of Haiti Aid". Huffington Post. Retrieved January 24, 2012.
  6. ^ Page, Clarence (January 29, 2012). "Where Did Haiti's Aid Go?". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved January 29, 2012.
  7. ^ Britell, Alexander (22 December 2011). "Haiti: Where Did the Money Go? An Interview with Michele Mitchell". Caribbean Journal. Retrieved 27 August 2012.
  8. ^ "Why Doesn't the American Red Cross Want People to See 'Haiti: Where Did the Money Go?'". Center for Economic and Policy Research. Retrieved 25 January 2012.
  9. ^ http://www.thegracies.org/2013-grace-awards.php#local
  10. ^ http://www.cine.org/fall-2012-golden-eagle-award-recipients/professional-telecast-news-division/
  11. ^ http://www.cine.org/special-jury-awards/cine-2013-special-jury-award-recipients/
  12. ^ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ut5_TVLAFDc
  13. ^ Cheng, Cheryl (2015-09-24). "New York Filmmaker Nick Louvel Dies at 34". Hollywood Reporter. Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 2015-09-24.
  14. ^ OPC of America. "2008 OPC Award Winners". Overseas Press Club of America. Retrieved 27 August 2012.
  15. ^ http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/414/transcript.html
  16. ^ http://www.ammanimman.org/
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