Jack Willis is a journalist, writer and filmmaker.
Career
Jack Willis, documentary filmmaker and television producer, was the co-founder of Link TV a Direct Broadcast Satellite channel currently in over 34 million American homes via DirecTV and the Dish Network. He has been a producer and executive in commercial, cable and public television. He was a Senior Fellow at George Soros’ Open Society Institute where he developed and directed a program on media policy. From 1990 to 1997 he was President and CEO of Twin Cities Public Television. He was also vice-president of programming and production for CBS Cable, where he developed the critically acclaimed performing arts channel, Director of Statue of Liberty Programming for Metro Media Producer’s Corp. and Director of Programming and Production of WNET/13 in New York City. Jack Willis has created and produced many award winning series including the Emmy-award winning news showThe 51st State for WNET/13. He was Co-Executive Producer of PBS’ groundbreaking, Emmy winning, The Great American Dream Machine, and the Emmy-winning series City Within a City, a documentary which was widely credited with helping to achieve passage of Milwaukee’s Open Housing Law. He has also produced and directed numerous award-winning documentaries. He has produced films for CBS News as well as The Human Animal series, with Phil Donahue, for NBC. His independent documentary, Paul Jacobs and the Nuclear Gang, about the governmentcover up of the fatal effects of the Nevada nuclear bomb tests on military personnel and civilians living downwind from the tests, won an Emmy and the George Polk Award for investigative journalism. Two of his films, Lay My Burden Down, about the plight of black sharecroppers in the rural south, and Every Seventh Child, about Catholic education were shown at the New York Film Festival. His first film, The Streets of Greenwood about voting rights in Mississippi, won the Gold Medal at the San Francisco Film Festival. With his wife, Mary, he has written several highly rated network movies and co-authored the book But There Are Always Miracles. He has a BA and LLB from UCLA and an Honorary Doctor of Law from Saint John's University in Minnesota.
Paul Jacobs and the Nuclear Gang – A political documentary about government suppression of the health hazards of low-level radiation. Paul Jacobs died from lung cancer before the documentary was finished. His doctors believed he contracted it while he was investigating nuclear policies in 1957. Jacobs interviewed civilians and soldiers, survivors of nuclear experiments in the 50s and 60s, testing the effects of radiation. The film won an Emmy Award, George Polk Award for investigative journalism on TV, Hugh M. Hefner First Amendment Award, and Best Documentary at the Mannheim Film Festival.
Power and the Presidency
The Case Against Milligan Emmy-nominated
City Within A City – Emmy-award winning documentary about poverty in Wisconsin, widely credited with helping to achieve passage of Milwaukee’s Open Housing law.
