Jay Allison Biography

Jay Allison is an independent broadcast journalist. His work airs on NPR's "All Things Considered" and "Morning Edition," PRI's "This American Life," and other national programs. He is well known for his role as the curator and producer of "This I Believe" on NPR, and is co-editor of the best-selling books based on the series. Among his many projects, Allison is currently working with "The Moth" in New York City to develop a new national series for public radio.

Over the last 25 years, Allison has created hundreds of documentaries, essays, and special series for national and international broadcast, and has won virtually every major industry award for his productions and collaborations, including the duPont-Columbia and five Peabodys.

He was the 1996 recipient of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting's Edward R. Murrow Award for outstanding contributions to public radio, the industry's highest honor. In 2002, he received the Public Radio News Directors' Leo C. Lee Award for lasting commitment to public radio journalism.

Allison is co-producer of "Lost & Found Sound," "The Sonic Memorial Project," and "Hidden Kitchens" with the Kitchen Sisters; "The Miles Davis Radio Project" with Steve Rowland and Quincy Troupe; "Beyond Affliction: The Disability History Project" with Laurie Block; "Stories from the Heart of the Land" with Emily Botein; and many other series, including "Life Stories" with Christina Egloff, a project which gives tape recorders to citizens and supports them in telling about their own lives.

For ABC News Nightline, Allison worked as a solo crew – shooting, reporting, and producing half-hour television specials. Ted Koppel has called him "a journalist in the finest tradition."

He is the Executive Director of Atlantic Public Media (APM), a nonprofit organization he founded to create WCAI, WNAN, and WZAI – a public radio service for Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard, and Nantucket – in collaboration with WGBH-Boston. The stations now broadcast from Woods Hole, Massachusetts where Allison and his family live. Locally, Allison hosts a weekly four-hour "documentary DJ" program called "Arts & Ideas," and has developed new techniques for using the interstitial time during the broadcast day with concepts like "Sonic IDs," which have been emulated by public radio stations around the country.

Allison is a founder of the Association of Independents in Radio and the originator and host of online forums for public broadcasting, from the early days on "The Well" in the 1980s up to recent projects he founded through APM: Transom.org and Public Radio Exchange. Transom is a website known for bringing new voices and stories to public radio and is the first ever to win the coveted Peabody for broadcasting. The Public Radio Exchange is an innovative web-based distribution system for public radio, and the recipient of the MacArthur Foundation's Genius Organization Award.

Allison's essays have appeared in The New York Times Magazine and other publications. He has taught journalism and audio production around the United States and overseas, and is a popular speaker on school and college campuses, known for his lectures on citizen participation in public media and community-building through the power of shared story.

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