About Us

Nick Penniman - Director

Before conceiving and starting the American News Project, Nick Penniman served as the Washington Director of the Schumann Center for Media and Democracy, the publisher of The Washington Monthly, the editor of TomPaine.com, the program director of the Campaign for America's Future, the associate editor of the American Prospect magazine, the director of the Alliance for Democracy and the editor of the Lincoln Journal. Over the course of his career, he has focused primarily on exposing political corruption, exploring the power and impact of corporate globalization, heralding the rise of independent media, challenging the decline of civic mindedness, and bringing attention to the intersection of public health and the environment. He has served on multiple nonprofit boards, including the Homeless Empowerment Project and the Roosevelt Institution. He graduated from St. Lawrence University with a degree in philosophy. He grew up in St. Louis and currently lives in Maryland with his wife and two sons.

David Murdock - Executive Producer

For more than ten years, Emmy Award winning journalist David Murdock has produced documentaries with the likes of Bill Moyers, Hedrick Smith, David Fanning, and David Grubin.

His work, which includes investigative reporting for Frontline, historical research for The American Experience, and natural history programming for National Geographic Television, has been nominated three times for Emmy Awards. In 2008, Murdock won a producing Emmy for Outstanding Science, Technology, and Nature programming in recognition for his work on the PBS series, The Mysterious Human Heart.

Before becoming a broadcast producer, Murdock was a teacher and director for eight years at the Educational Video Center in New York City.  At EVC, he trained inner city youth to create documentaries dealing with issues of importance to their lives.  To this day, he remains active with EVC and its graduates.

In addition to his work at PBS, Murdock has also been a staff producer with National Geographic Television, shooting and producing stories all over the world -- from Bolivian silver mines to Australian billabongs.  Prior to joining American News Project, Murdock reported from the Congo for Bill Moyers Journal about humanitarian efforts taking place to rebuild that war-torn nation.

Murdock graduated from Columbia University with a B.A. in English literature.

Davin Hutchins - Managing Producer

Davin Hutchins has 13 years of experience in television journalism. He has worked with CNN, CNN International, Headline News, Reuters, BBC World, IRIN News, Witness.org, Internews and TechTV. His assignments have taken him to Egypt, Sudan, Palestine, United Arab Emirates, Lebanon, Turkey, Kuwait, Jordan, Oman, Kenya, Tanzania, South Africa, Iceland, France, Britain, Denmark, the Netherlands as well as locations throughout the United States. Hutchins directed The Art Of Flight, his debut feature documentary, which was featured at AFI Fest, International Documentary Festival Amsterdam and Bangkok International Film Festival. Hutchins holds an M.A. in Middle East studies from the American University in Cairo and two B.A.s in journalism and history from California State University: Fresno. He reads and writes classical and colloquial (Egyptian) Arabic. In addition to his work at the American News Project, where he spearheaded the site's core functionality, Hutchins also founded and designed NomadsLand in Washington, D.C., an international community devoted to social-issue documentaries.

Follow Hutch's reporting on Twitter.

Harry Hanbury - Senior Producer

Over 10 years as a freelancer and, most recently, as a senior producer with New Media Mill, Harry Hanbury has specialized in producing, shooting, and editing public-interest videos. His clients have included Advocates for Youth, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), the Alliance for Justice, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the Gamaliel Foundation, Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR), the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the Save Darfur Coalition. In 2000, Hanbury produced documentary shorts for the Discovery Channel, filming in South Africa, the Bahamas, and Galapagos. And from 1998 to 2004, he worked with six Hollywood studios to produce dozens of shorts featuring Martin Scorsese, Brad Pitt, Ray Romano, and a long list of other celebrities. Hanbury’s career started in 1993, after receiving a B.A. in philosophy and sociology from New College of Florida.

Tala Dowlatshahi - Producer

Tala Dowlatshahi is a journalist who has worked for Amnesty International in London and various UN agencies in New York and Geneva. Since 2002, Dowlatshahi has served as a U.S. Representative of Reporters Without Borders (Reporters sans Frontieres) -- the Paris-based media watchdog organization. She has chronicled stories in Afghanistan, Colombia, Eritrea, Eastern Europe, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Tanzania, Turkey and Uganda. She has also been featured on CNN International, BBC World News, Al Jazeera, Voice of America, Reuters, Hoy Newspaper, Globo Television-Brazil, Counter-Spin-WBAI/Pacifica Radio New York, Radio America-Washington DC, KGO Radio for ABC News- San Francisco, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, and in various humanitarian news programs. She is an associate member of the International Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, the Interactive EMMYs, the International Peace Academy, New York Women in Film and Television and the Overseas Press Club of America. She holds a B.A. in mass communications from the University of California at Berkeley and an M.A. in international politics from New York University.

Steven Greenstreet - Producer

In 2001, after serving a two-year service mission to Venezuela, Steven dove into documentary filmmaking. In 2004, he directed his first feature length film, This Divided State, which centered on an explosion of outrage and protest that descended on Utah Valley University when Michael Moore was invited to speak two weeks before the presidential election. Amid death threats, bribery, and lawsuits, the film candidly focused on the failure of civil discourse in America. It was critically acclaimed as "filmmaking gold...extremely moving" (NY TIMES) and "a fascinating, infuriating story" (TV GUIDE). Steven then spent the next two years filming a documentary on the obesity epidemic. That film, Killer at Large, has won international film festival awards and has been heralded as "entertaining cinematic advocacy journalism" (S.L. Weekly).

Garland McLaurin - Coordinating Producer

Garland McLaurin has worked in the area of television and film for nine years. Prior to the American News Project, McLaurin has produced worked for Verizon Fios 1, National Geographic and Retirement Living Channel. McLaurin holds a B.A. in radio-TV-film from Howard University and studied at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts in the M.F.A. film program. He has taught classes on film in South Africa and at Howard University and has received grants for his work from DC Commission of the Arts and the Princess Grace Foundation.

Danielle Ivory - Associate Producer

Before joining the American News Project, Danielle Ivory worked with Bill Moyers as a senior fellow and research director at the Schumann Center for Media & Democracy and Public Affairs Television. In the past, she has worked as a production assistant with Weekend Edition Sunday on National Public Radio and as a reporter for The Nation, one of Thailand's national English-language newspapers. Ivory holds an M.Phil in modern history from the University of Oxford, where she wrote her dissertation on the history of car accidents, and an A.B. in history from Princeton University.

Mike Fritz - Associate Producer

Mike Fritz is a journalist based in Washington D.C. Before joining the American News Project, he worked as an online video producer for the Associated Press, political researcher for NBC’s Today Show and a production assistant for Tom Brokaw’s documentary “The Secret Man: The Story of Watergate’s Deep Throat.” Fritz has also spent time in print as a general assignment reporter for the Daily Nebraskan and a contributing editor of the Spokane Sidekick Magazine. He graduated with a degree in Broadcast Journalism and Communications from the University of Nebraska in 2005.

Lagan Sebert - Associate Producer

Lagan is finishing a graduate degree in journalism and public policy at American University. His thesis documentary, Busco Personas: Faces from Colombia's War was recently accepted to AFI film festival.  Lagan has reported for WAMU (Washington D.C.'s NPR), Current TV, AmericanObserver.net, and HollywoodToday.net. Lagan served in the United States Peace Corps and is a published fiction writer. In 2008 Lagan won The Merriman Award, The Jack Jury Award, and American University's Vision's Award-- all for excellence in journalism.

American News Project - Advisory Board

Joan Konner, Chair: Dean Emerita and Professor Emerita of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. Long-time TV producer and documentary filmmaker. Producer of more than 50 documentaries and many television series. Recipient of 16 Emmy Awards, the Peabody and the Alfred I. DuPont-Columbia Award for Excellence in Broadcasting.

Leo Hindery, Jr.: Managing Partner of InterMedia Partners. Chairman of the Advisory Council of the Smart Globalization Initiative at the New America Foundation, a Member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a Director of the Paley Center for Media and Teach for America, a Member of the Board of Visitors of the Columbia School of Journalism, and former Chairman of the National Cable Television Association (NCTA) and C-SPAN.

Mark Lloyd: Vice president of strategic initiatives at the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights. Affiliate professor of public policy at Georgetown University. Emmy Award-winning journalist and a former producer and reporter for NBC and CNN.

Fran Rodgers: Entrepeneur and independent media advocate. Founder of the corporate consulting firm WFD. Named one of the 25 most influential working mothers in the America by Working Mother magazine. Recipient of the Columbus Award for Discovery from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. National Winner of Entrepeneur of the Year Award in Social Responsibility (Inc Magazine and Ernst and Young.)

Hedrick Smith: Pulitzer Prize-winning former New York Times reporter and editor. Producer and correspondent of more than 20 award-winning PBS prime time specials and miniseries. Author of several national best-selling books, including "The Russians" and "The Power Game: How Washington Works."