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Joe Blatt is an experienced broadcast professional who has created and produced groundbreaking series nationally for public television for more than twenty years. Joe is also an accomplished lecturer at Harvard University. In 1996, he and partner Leda Zimmerman created RiverRun Media, a full-service creative production company.
Prior to starting RiverRun Media, Joe was Executive Producer for Blackside, in Boston. While there, he created and co-executive produced BreakThrough, a series of six one-hour documentaries about African-American, Latino, and Native American scientists and engineers. The series premiered on PBS in the spring of 1996 to critical acclaim and industry accolades.
Before that, Joe was with the Chedd-Angier Production Company for ten years in many different capacities. Among them, Joe was Executive Producer of Scientific American FRONTIERS, the monthly science magazine series broadcast nationally on PBS. As executive producer, he was responsible for all the story selection and production of what is considered the pre-eminent science magazine series.
While with Chedd-Angier, he also produced documentaries for NOVA, public television’s signature science documentary series. Joe made the national PBS pledge special, An Astronaut's View of Earth, which features film shot by astronauts including the broadcast premiere of footage from IMAX films, The Dream is Alive and Blue Planet. He also produced Race for the Top, a documentary on experimental high-energy physics and the international search for one of the most elusive objects in nature, the top quark.
Joe has produced several long-form series for public television, including segments for SQUARE ONE TV, the award winning Children's Television Workshop math series for kids; Against All Odds, 26 half-hour shows on statistics; and For All Practical Purposes, a 26-part series that celebrates the applications of mathematics in everyday life. He also created Feeling Free, a series to help children understand disabilities.
Among Joe's most recent credits is multi-faceted creative work for the Harvard Business School's Management Series. RiverRun Media is the exclusive producer of the research and marketing support materials as well as of unusual, behind-the-scenes documentaries. Joe recently completed a case study of the way L.L. Bean brings a new product from conception through research and development to market.
Before founding RiverRun, Joe also spent a number of years at WGBH as producer of THE CAPTIONED ABC NEWS, the first fully captioned nightly national news program. While with WGBH, Joe produced interactive videodiscs and other new technology projects.
Joe has received numerous industry awards and honors including several Chicago International Film Festival Golden Hugos, two Cine Golden Eagles, two Chris Awards from the Columbus International Film and Video Festival, the American Film and Video Festival's Red Ribbon, two Gold Apples, the Ohio State Award and more. Additionally, Joe is a published researcher and author in the field of educational television for children. He is a lecturer at the Harvard University Graduate School of Education.
Joe holds both an Ed.M. and an A.B. from Harvard University.