MEET THE STAFF:  ALGHANI, RABIA  Facilities Manager  ALPERT, JON  Co-Founder & Co-Director  BENNSTROM, DAG  Post-Production Manager  CASSIDY, ESTHER  Development Director  HESSENTHALER, MEGAN  Rentals Coordinator  HIGASHITANI, REINA  Producer  Co-Director, Productions For Hire  MESSINGER, DARA  Member Services Coordinator  MORTON, MILES  Graphics Manager  O’NEILL, MATTHEW  Producer/Director  RAMOS, JOHNNY  Assistant Director, Youth Programs  RUIZ, CLARIVEL  Director, Youth Programs  RUSSELL, NATHAN  Director, Production & Member Services  SCOTT, CHINISHA  Youth Programs Associate  SONENSTEIN, SHANNON  Producer  Co-Director, Productions For Hire  SPENCER, SANDY  Managing Director  TABBAA, KARIM  Distribution Coordinator  TSUNO, KEIKO  Co-Founder & Co-Director  CONSULTANTS & VOLUNTEERS  BELFANTI, PATRICIA  ConnecTV  CAPPELLA, DONNA  Assistant to the Director  CHANG, LEI  ConnecTV  CUSTODIO, JOHN  Editor  KAPLAN, JOHN  Cable Show Producer  MENESES, DAVID  Editor  MIZOGUCHI, NAOMI  Editor  NARAYANASWAMY, ALAMELU  Website Associate  RENAUD, BRENT  Producer/Director  RENAUD, CRAIG  Producer/Director  STEIN, EDDIE  Editor  STERRENBERG, JAY  Editor  DCTV INSTRUCTORS  ALBERTS, JEFF  ARMSTRONG, KALIM  BARTON, ADAM  COLTHURST, BRENDAN  DESAI, NIHARIKA  FLEISCHMAN, JEREMY  GAILE, DON  GERMAIN, RAOUL  GIBSON, JODI  GOLDMAN, CARRIE  GOODMAN, DAVID  KHAVIN, DMITRIY  KILGUST, BEN  LEARS, RACHEL  LONG, JENNIFER  MATHES, ISAAC  MODI, ANAND  MOONEY, SHARON  NASTASI, JONATHAN  PARADA, ED  PEROT AUDI, SIMONE  PHILLIPS-HORST, ERIC  REIS, PATRICK  ROBINS, JEREMY  RUTTER, NAFTALI  SINNOKROT, NIDA  STERRENBERG, JAY  YOMTOOB, LILA  PROTV INSTRUCTORS  BRITTO, MICHAEL  CAMPENNI, RAH  DURAN, ALEJANDRO  LOHMAN, MELISSA  PEREZ ANTIGUA, JESSE  POLIZZI, RUBIN  RICHARDS, ORLANDO

Jon Alpert // Co-Founder + Co-Director, Video Producer, and Reporter Likes: Dogs, Hockey Dislikes: Bad Beer, Formal Pantswear Jon Alpert has distinguished himself as an award-winning journalist. He has won three Primetime Emmy Awards, eleven News & Documentary Emmy Awards and one National Emmy for Sports Programming. Alpert, a native of Port Chester, NY, graduated from Colgate University in 1970. He then spent two years driving a taxi in New York City and held various odd jobs to support what he called his “growing video habit.” In 1972 he and his wife, Keiko Tsuno, started Downtown Community Television Center, one of the country’s first community media centers. Alpert bought a used mail truck for five dollars, installed TV sets in the side, and began showing his videotapes on street corners in Chinatown. At first nobody watched, but soon his tapes about local issues began to attract small crowds. Between 1974 and 1979, Alpert co-produced five one-hour documentaries for public television. The earliest, entitled “Cuba: The People,” presented the first American television coverage inside Cuba in ten years. The New York Times selected Alpert’s work as one of the best television productions in the country that year. In 1976 he won one of his four Du Pont-Columbia Awards and The Christopher Award for “Chinatown: Immigrants in America.” His 1977 award-winning piece on Vietnam entitled “Vietnam: Picking Up The Pieces", marked the first time an American TV crew had filmed inside Vietnam since the war. Alpert began contributing to NBC in 1979 with his coverage of the Vietnam-China Border Wars. Over the next dozen years Alpert’s investigative reporting, editing, and camera work earned an impressive string of awards and scoops. His journalistic sense led him to hot news spots all over the world. Alpert was the first American TV reporter to enter Cambodia after the Vietnam War. His reports provided the initial documentation of Pol Pot’s genocide and of Cambodia’s impending famine. Making many trips to Vietnam, Alpert produced a continuous stream of exclusive TV reports. He interviewed and helped repatriate the last known American POW, Bobby Garwood. He was the only reporter to gain entry into the “re-education” camps for former South Vietnamese officials. His body of work from Vietnam won multiple National Emmys, the Overseas Press Club Award, and part of a Peabody Award. During the hostage crisis in Iran, Alpert provided NBC with numerous exclusive reports. He was the last reporter to gain entry into the Embassy where the American hostages were being held, and he broke the news of the conflict between Iran and Iraq. From Iran he crossed through the desert and became the first television reporter to enter Afghanistan with the Mujahadin. Alpert continued to produce unique coverage of historical events from Central America, where he was to the only American TV reporter to remain in Nicaragua as the Sandinistas took over. When the victorious rebel army drove into Managua, Alpert filmed from the second car. Alpert was the first reporter to record pictures of the Contra war. His reports from the battlefields won many honors. Always on the edge of breaking news, Alpert’s reports from The Philippines provided the strongest evidence of Marcos’s corruption and of the ruthlessness of the NPA guerrillas. His comprehensive reporting from all sides of the conflict earned a National Emmy. When Fidel Castro came to address the United Nations, Alpert and his team were the only non-Cubans allowed access to Castro. This produced numerous candid interviews with the Cuban leader. Alpert also filed many exclusive reports from Cuba. He was the only non-Cuban allowed to film freely in Mariel Bay during the boatlift. He broke the story about prisoners and mental patients being sent to the U.S. The Cubans felt these reports caused President Carter to stop the exodus. They barred Alpert from the island for many years. From the Soviet Union, Alpert brought back some of the first reports about Glasnost and Perestroika. He was in China during the Tiananmen Square Massacre and, by posing as a tourist, reported from parts of the county off-limits to other reporters. He also won many honors for his reporting in Angola and Korea. During the Persian Gulf War, Alpert entered Baghdad during the height of the bombing. He was the only TV reporter able to get out of the country with uncensored footage. He provided the first documentation of extensive civilian deaths caused by the bombing. His reports were awarded the Italian Peace Prize by the President of Italy. From 1993 to 2002, Alpert was the only reporter to interview Saddam Hussein. Domestically, Alpert was the first reporter on national television to bring attention to the homeless epidemic plaguing our nation. He was the first correspondent to document the fiscal crisis affecting family farms in America. His series examining occupational disease and runaway factories won a National Emmy for investigative reporting and was directly responsible for the conviction and incarceration of a company official who violated safety regulations. Alpert has reported extensively about environmental problems, economic issues, cowboys, Indians, turkey callers, whistle blowers, boxers, and breakdancers. These portraits of American culture were a regular feature on the Today Show and were singled out for their “unique contribution to American television” and awarded a special National Emmy Award. Altogether, Alpert’s work with NBC earned a total of seven National Emmy Awards, five Monitor Awards, the Clio Award, and the Gabriel Award. Some of the Emmy Awards were for camerawork and editing. Mr. Alpert is the only Emmy-winning reporter to also be honored in the craft categories as well. He has also won a National Emmy in the Sports Division, attesting to his legendary versatility. Alpert still does his own camerawork, and he pioneered the use of the one-person ENG crew. In fact, Alpert originated many of the technological innovations that helped usher in the ENG revolution, including the initial use of inter-format computer editing, the first telecast of color ENG, and the first use of Betacam. In recent years Alpert has worked with HBO to produce a series of investigative documentaries. “One Year in A Life of Crime” was a ground-breaking reality TV portrait of three criminals from Newark. He was executive producer of “Rape: Cries from the Heartland”. In 1995 Alpert’s “Lock-up: The Prisoners of Rikers Island” won critical acclaim and the highest ratings of any HBO documentary. Also in 1995, "High on Crack Street: Lost Lives in Lowell" was hailed as the best anti-drug documentary ever made. It won a Columbia Dupont Award, Alpert’s third. In December of 1998, HBO aired “Life of Crime – Part 2”. This two-hour documentary follows the criminals from the original “Life of Crime” as they try to reform their lives. It brought Alpert his eleventh National Emmy Award. In 1998, HBO also broadcast “A Cinderella Season: The Lady Vols Fight Back” about the champion University of Tennessee Lady Vols basketball team. This program, too, won a National Emmy Award in the Sports Division. In recent years, Alpert has produced reports for NBC about nuclear proliferation, illegal immigration, and horse milk. He has also made some unique and unusual reports for ESPN’s NHL2nite show. Jon shot, skated and interviewed at the same time. He only fell once. Alpert was invited to accompany Jesse Jackson’s delegation to Yugoslavia to free the three American prisoners of war. He was the only journalist to film their freedom ride. ABC’s 20/20 broadcast his exclusive story on May 7, 1999. On September 11th 2001, Alpert was the only reporter to film the first night of rescue efforts at ground zero. His footage appeared on CBS’s Early Show and HBO’s documentary “In Memoriam”. In December 2001 Alpert traveled to Kandahar, Afghanistan following a Afghan-American woman’s journey back to her birthplace. This documentary “From Ground Zero to Ground Zero” aired on NHK Japanese television, CBC Canadian television, and PBS’s Now with Bill Moyers show. In the Spring of 2002 Alpert’s documentary “Papa” about his father’s struggles with aging and failing health aired on Cinemax on Father’s day. In July his one-hour documentary, "To Have and Have Not: The Changing Face of China" aired on the national PBS series Wide Angle to critical acclaim. In the Summer of 2003, “Latin Kings: A Gang Story”, an inside look at New York’s largest and most dangerous street gang, aired on HBO. Alpert has also designed and created the fabulous Cybercar - a forty foot long production bus with a satellite dish on the top and a Times Square video wall on the side. The Cybercar has traveled around New York State to produce the local Emmy Award winning program "Speak-Up New York". The vehicle has also traveled across America and the resulting "Main Street USA" was broadcast on NHK and Link TV. Alpert also produced two specials live from Iraq called “Bridge to Baghdad” and “Bridge to Baghdad II” in which Iraqi and American teens were able to speak to one another directly both before and after the war began. The Cybercar has been employed for other initiatives that creatively use technology and media – most recently it went into New York City most dangerous neighborhoods – to combat gun violence. Town meetings of local youth gathered around to view “Bullets in the Hood” – DCTV’s youth produced film that won the Jury prize at Sundance Film Festival. In 2005, he completed “The Last Cowboy” filmed over the last 24 years in Porcupine, South Dakota. While 250 families leave their farms and ranches every week in the U.S., this documentary follows a young man, Vernon Sager, grow old as he fights to maintain a way of life and sees it fade away. It aired on PBS. In the summer of 2005, Jon Alpert along with Matthew O’Neill gained an unprecedented access to the 86th Combat Support Hospital, the U.S. Army's premiere medical center in Iraq. They spent two months in this trauma center and captured the stories of the staff of the 86th CSH and the injured soldiers whose lives are saved and lost within the hospital halls. “Baghdad ER” premiered on HBO in May 2006 to great critical acclaim. It was nominated for six National Prime Time Emmys, winning four. It also received a Columbia DuPont Award, Peabody Award, and The Christopher Award. In addition to his work as a reporter, Alpert serves as co-founder/co-director of the Downtown Community Television Center (DCTV), America’s largest and most honored non-profit community media center which is located in a landmark Chinatown, New York firehouse.