HOWARD WEINBERG

                         

 

                    

        Documentary Filmmaker / Television Journalist

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Bill Moyers (left) and Howard Weinberg on the set of Listening to America.

Howard Weinberg is an award-winning independent documentary film and television producer who has created significant public and commercial television programming. His innovative reporting and imaginative producing have contributed to the successes of major figures in American journalism: Bill Moyers, Studs Terkel, Robert MacNeil, Jim Lehrer, Hodding Carter, Charles Kuralt and Harry Reasoner.

Founding Producer of The MacNeil/Lehrer Report that began as The Robert MacNeil Report and made nightly news analysis a staple of public television; Executive Producer of The Dick Cavett Show — the premiere talk show of PBS; Creator and Producer of Assignment America with Studs Terkel; Senior Producer of Inside Story with Hodding Carter; and Executive Producer of Listening to America with Bill Moyers — a 27-part election year series called "one of the high watermarks of televised politics", Weinberg has earned a reputation for producing quality television and the recognition of his peers. Columbia Journalism School has honored him with its Alumni Award for Distinguished Achievement.

Political Cartoonists Bill Mauldin (left) and Pat Oliphant (center) with Studs Terkel during the filming of "If It's Big, Hit It"

Specializing in arts and culture as well as politics, education and public policy, Weinberg has worked with major figures of our time: Luciano Pavarotti — twice producing his Pavarotti Plus! Concert intermission features for Live From Lincoln Center; Dizzy Gillespie, David Hockney, Willem de Kooning, Jennifer Bartlett, Harold Prince, Ricardo Muti and Robert Joffrey, Leontyne Price, Nam June Paik, Charles Dutoit and Yo Yo Ma — profiling them for CBS Sunday Morning with Eugenia Zukerman, Billy Taylor, Heywood Hale Broun and other correspondents. For CBS 60 Minutes, he profiled alternate energy experts Amory and Hunter Lovins, and produced stories on Campaign Finance Reform, Airline Pilots' Retirement Age and Maternity Leave Laws. Weinberg profiled political cartoonists Pat Oliphant and Bill Mauldin, who caricatured Presidents Nixon, Johnson and Ford, and he produced other programs with or about Presidents Bill Clinton, George Bush, Ronald Reagan, and Jimmy Carter.   In 2004, he produced Unraveling of a Candidate, an election year reminder of how untoward moments can derail candidates in presidential primaries, for the Discovery Channel's Spotlight series via New York Times Television.   The program was repeated multiple tiimes on DiscoveryTimes cable.

A documentary filmmaker with wide-ranging interests, Weinberg produced "Topless Cellist" Charlotte Moorman, a ha1f-hour video commissioned as a tribute to the late impresario and performance artist by her long-time collaborator, the seminal video artist Nam June Paik. Originally broadcast on WNET/New York, "Topless Cellist" was selected for screening by the New York Film Festival; it played for four months at Holly Solomon Gallery in SoHo and has been shown on television and at museums and festivals worldwide.

Weinberg has been honored with Emmy, Peabody, DuPont and Polk awards for his work. In addition he has written, produced and directed documentaries that have won other prestigious awards: Moyers/Sports for Sale — the Excellence in Sports Journalism Award from the Center for the Study of Sport in Society; Special Report: After the War — the CINE Golden Eagle Award; First Things First, A Project Literacy U.S. Special — the Education Writers of America Reporting Award.
 

Weinberg won his second Education Writers of America Award for net.LEARNING, a two-hour PBS documentary about the new phenomena of online college courses. For MSNBC cable television, he produced a profile of Caroline Kennedy and a documentary, Extreme Plastic Surgery.

His independent documentary, Sid at 90, a profile of veteran actor/comedian Sid Raymond, has been selected for screening by the12th Annual New York Jewish Film Festival at Lincoln Center and will be broadcast on WLIW 21, Long Island, New York Public Television. Weinberg and Ruth Leon produced and directed New York in Song -- a 90-minute special featuring 30 great cabaret stars singing songs about "the city that never sleeps" to benefit the educational needs of children of victims of 9/11. Among his current independent works-in-progress are a cabaret performance series with Ruth Leon about America's greatest composers and lyricists, The Great American Songbook; and a documentary about the TV Lab at Thirteen/WNET: TV's First Digital Revolution.

Expert in orchestrating panel discussions and hybrid documentary/discussion public affairs programs, Weinberg wrote and produced The Future of Investing for Wall Street Journal Television's European Business News and Asian Business News networks; 1996 — America's Election for NHK, Japan; and four DuPont-Columbia Forums: Journalists, Lawyers, and Public Officials — Overcoming Public Mistrust; Money, Humor & Spin in Election 2000; TV News: Serving the "Public Interest, Convenience and Necessity"?; and Journalists in a Time of Crisis: Watchdogs or Lapdogs? The PBS Adult Learning Service distributed the edited duPont programs to public television stations and classrooms.

As a producer of studio talk programs, Weinberg is skilled at speaking into an anchor's ear to guide a show's pace and to add information. As a host/interviewer himself, he has demonstrated his on-air abilities by moderating a program on Digital Filmmaking that he also produced for The New York Film/Video Council for cablecast on Manhattan Neighborhood Network.   His first network broadcast appearance as a correspondent-narrator came in the Fall of 2004 when he hosted as well as produced and narrated Ethics in Sports--A CBS Religion Special.

Weinberg welcomes opportunities to guest lecture before journalism classes and has done so at the University of California, Berkeley; University of California, San Diego; University of Massachusetts; Long Island University; City University of New York; and Columbia University.

"Documentary Doctor" Weinberg helps refine rough cuts, as he did for Hoop Dreams.

As a consultant, Weinberg is known as the the "Script-Doctor" or "Doc Doc" — "Documentary Doctor."  He doctors scripts, refines rough or fine cuts of documentaries — notably for the award-winning documentary feature film Hoop Dreams. When brought in at an early stage, he rewrites and revises proposals and treatments for television documentary and public affairs series.  .

A lifetime member of the Writers' Guild, Weinberg was elected in July 2005 to the Board of Governors of the New York Chapter of the National Television Academy, where he has been a frequent speaker. For many years a member of the New York Film/Video Council, the oldest non-profit organization promoting independent film in the United States, Weinberg served as its President from 1999-2001. He continued to serve the Council as a Board Member, and was reelected as its president for 2004-2008.

Weinberg grew up in Omaha, Nebraska, was graduated from Omaha Central High School whose Alumni Association has inducted him into its Hall of Fame. He was graduated cum laude from Dartmouth College, where he was Editor of The Dartmouth, which later honored him with its Distinguished Alumni Award. Weinberg was graduated with honors from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism, which also has honored him with its Alumni Award for Distinguished Service to Journalism.