Christof Putzel | |
---|---|
Born | 1979 Washington, D.C. |
Education | Connecticut College |
Occupation |
Journalist Correspondent |
Years active | 2003–present |
Notable credit(s) |
Vanguard America Tonight |
Christof Putzel is an award-winning journalist most recently with Al Jazeera America's news magazine America Tonight. He was formerly a correspondent for Vanguard, Current TV's investigative documentary series. His work has also been featured on ABC’s Nightline, Good Morning America, CNN, PBS, CBC, and the Sundance Channel.
Christof began his production career while still an undergraduate at Connecticut College, where he produced his first documentary, "Left Behind," about AIDS orphans in Kenya. After screening at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival, the film won a Student Academy Award, a Student Emmy, the International Documentary Association’s David Wolper Award, and the HBO Films Best Student Film Award.
Christof joined Current TV in 2005 as one of the network’s first employees. The following year, he was the first American television journalist to report from Mogadishu, Somalia since the infamous Black Hawk Down incident in 1993. His resulting story, Mogadishu Madness, about the rise and fall of the Islamic Court Union, was nominated for an Emmy.
He has since trekked in the jungles of the Democratic Republic of Congo to cover the exploitation of child gold miners, made the treacherous journey through the desert to cross the Mexico/US border with migrants trying to reach American soil, and camped on the southern shores of Yemen, where he discovered the bodies of more than two-dozen refugees who drowned attempting to escape the violence in Somalia.
In 2009, Putzel won both the prestigious Livingston Award for International Reporting and Columbia University’s Alfred I. duPont Award for his report, “From Russia with Hate,” about the rise of violent attacks against immigrants in Moscow by neo-Nazi skinheads. The following year, Christof was nominated for his third Emmy for “Lost in Democracy,” a documentary about the first democratic elections held in the tiny Himalayan Kingdom of Bhutan.
In 2012, "Sex, Lies, and Cigarettes," a documentary centered around Aldi, "the Indonesian smoking baby," went viral after exposing Philip Morris's marketing practices in the developing world. It won an Overseas Press Club Award, a PRISM Award, and was nominated for an Emmy.