Jeffrey P. Jones

Jeffrey P. Jones
Jeffrey P. Jones at the 74th Annual Peabody Awards

Jeffrey P. Jones is Lambdin Kay Chair for the Peabodys and Director of the George Foster Peabody Awards. Appointed July 2013 as the 5th Director of the Peabody Awards, he is author and editor of five books including Entertaining Politics: Satirical Television and Political Engagement and Satire TV: Politics and Comedy in the Post-Network Era. Under Jones' tenure, the Peabody Awards announced in the spring of 2014 a three-year deal with Pivot TV/Participant Media to air a prime-time special of the Peabody Awards Luncheon Ceremony, the first time the Peabody Awards have appeared on television in over a decade. The 73rd Peabody Award Winners were also announced live for the first time on CBS This Morning on April 2, 2014.

Jones hails from Auburn, Alabama, where he earned a BA and MA at Auburn University in political science before receiving his PhD in radio-TV-film from the University of Texas at Austin.

Jeffrey P. Jones is Professor, Lambdin Kay Chair for the Peabody family, and Director of the Peabody Awards at the University of Georgia. Previously, Jones was director of the Institute of Humanities at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, United States. He is the author and co-editor of five books and over thirty scholarly journal articles, book chapters, and encyclopedia entries. His research has focused on the intersections of politics and popular culture, in particular, political entertainment television. He has also written extensively on cable news, television talk shows, popular culture, and citizenship. He is currently writing a new monograph, Television and Politics in the Digital Age: Performing American Public Life. He has taught at universities and colleges in Texas, Alabama, Maryland, and Virginia, where he has offered courses in television, journalism, documentary, new media, and popular culture.

Jones, author and editor of five books, was a pioneer in the field of political entertainment studies, penning one of the first books on the political satire’s resurgence and importance on American television.