Jacquie Jones


Jacquie Jones was an American public television film director, producer, writer and media executive. She was an editor of the Black Film Review from 1989 to 1993. She was executive director of Black Public Media from 2005 to 2014.
Jones founded the New Media Institute in 2006 and the Public Media Corps in 2009. She was the recipient of two Peabody Awards, a Gracie Award and was selected as a Revson Fellow at Columbia University.
Jones lived in Durban, South Africa. She was visiting Washington, D.C., with her family in December 2017 when she became ill. Jones died January 28, 2018.

Early life and education

Jacqueline Michele Jones was born April 28, 1965 in Washington D.C. Her parents were Humphrey and Claire Antoine Jones. Her family later moved to Memphis, Tennessee. Jones attended Howard University, majoring in English and minoring in African American Studies. She obtained her BA in English in 1987. Jones was editor of the Black Film Review from 1989 until 1993. She later attended Stanford University, earning a MA in documentary filmmaking in 1995.

Career

Jones' was hired as a producer for Public Broadcasting Station, WGBH, in Boston after her graduation from Stanford University. In 1999 she was hired as senior vice president of ROJA productions. She worked at ROJA until 2003. While working for ROJA, Jones was responsible for creating new installations for the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, Tennessee.
From 2005 to 2014, Jones served as executive director of the National Black Programming Consortium. This nonprofit organization's primary focus is to develop media content about the Black experience. "As executive director of the media arts organization, Jones expanded the focus of the nonprofit from public television to include digital media and she founded the New Media Institute that went on to train more than 500 media professionals in the tools needed to navigate the digital world.".
Jones founded the New Media Institute in 2006. She also established Public Media Corps in 2009, "which connected minority and low-income communities with broadband public media resources and social media tools."
Jones published writings in various anthologies and periodicals, including the anthologies Black Popular Culture and Picturing Us: African American Identity in Photography.

Film and television

Awards