Danny Schechter
Danny Schechter was a writer, director, producer, journalist and critic also known as “The News Dissector,” a nickname taken from his days at Boston radio rock station WBCN.
Schechter graduated from Cornell University, received his master’s degree from the London School of Economics and was given an honorary doctorate from Fitchburg College. After working in radio throughout the 1970s, during which he gained a reputation as a civil activist, he joined then-fledgling network CNN as a news producer in 1980. He later moved on to ABC’s 20/20,where he won two Emmy awards for his work.
In 1988 he co-founded the production company Globalvision with Rory O’Connor. They produced Rights & Wrongs: Human Rights Television, a 1990s series hosted by Charlayne Hunter-Gault, and South Africa Now, a weekly public affairs program that won a 1990 George Polk Award for its coverage of apartheid. As a director and producer, he helmed the documentaries WMD: Weapons of Mass Deception, In Debt We Trust: America Before the Bubble Bursts and Beyond ‘JFK': The Question of Conspiracy. He also directed and produced the television series Who Rules America, which attempted to reveal the "actual powers" in government. Additionally, he directed the 2014 six-part miniseries America's Surveillance State.
Danny Schechter was a writer, director, producer, journalist and critic also known as “The News Dissector,” a nickname taken from his days at Boston radio rock station WBCN.
Schechter graduated from Cornell University, received his master’s degree from the London School of Economics and was given an honorary doctorate from Fitchburg College. After working in radio throughout the 1970s, during which he gained a reputation as a civil activist, he joined then-fledgling network CNN as a news producer in 1980. He later moved on to ABC’s 20/20,where he won two Emmy awards for his work.
In 1988 he co-founded the production company Globalvision with Rory O’Connor. They produced Rights & Wrongs: Human Rights Television, a 1990s series hosted by Charlayne Hunter-Gault, and South Africa Now, a weekly public affairs program that won a 1990 George Polk Award for its coverage of apartheid. As a director and producer, he helmed the documentaries WMD: Weapons of Mass Deception, In Debt We Trust: America Before the Bubble Bursts and Beyond ‘JFK': The Question of Conspiracy. He also directed and produced the television series Who Rules America, which attempted to reveal the "actual powers" in government. Additionally, he directed the 2014 six-part miniseries America's Surveillance State.
A close friend of Nelson Mandela, Schecter made six nonfiction films about the revered South African leader, including Mandela in America. Schechter also wrote a book about him, Madiba A to Z: The Many Faces of Nelson Mandela, which was published alongside the film Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom. Schechter wrote 17 books, the best-known of which is The More You Watch the Less You Know, which explains, as he put it, “how the media really works and why it doesn't work the way it should.”
He worked in a variety of mediums, launching MediaChannel.org with O’Connor, where he was a prolific blogger. He also helped musician and activist Steven Van Zandt recruit artists to appear in the video for Van Zandt’s 1985 protest song, “Sun City” by Artists United Against Apartheid.
Schechter died March 19, 2015, in New York City. He was 72.
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