Brings contemporary and visionary approach to multiplatform storytelling

(Boston, MA -- July 23, 2020) -- Boston public media producer WGBH today announced the selection of Cameo George as the next Executive Producer of its award-winning history series AMERICAN EXPERIENCE. An accomplished documentary producer and digital media executive with experience at ABC News, CNN and Ozy Media, George succeeds Mark Samels who retired earlier this year.

“Cameo brings a unique combination of skills to the series,” says John Bredar, Vice President for National Programs at WGBH. “She has a passion for history and is clear-eyed about how it informs the present. She also has a canny sense of the power of social and digital media to advance American history to a broad audience. Understanding our own history, whether redeeming or shocking, knits all of us together and couldn’t be more important right now. Cameo is the right person to drive those stories – and us – forward.”

AMERICAN EXPERIENCE is the longest-running, most watched and most decorated American history series available via broadcast or streaming in the United States. George will be the fourth executive producer of the documentary series which was founded in 1988 at WGBH Boston and airs nationally on PBS.

George brings to the role an extensive background in journalism and video production across all platforms, from digital content to long and short-form documentary films. She has been a production leader in both commercial and public media, working with noted filmmaker Stanley Nelson of Firelight Films on projects for premium streaming platforms and ABC News, and has worked with WGBH as co-executive producer on the debate series “Third Rail with OZY.”

“I am thrilled to be joining American Experience at this time when we see that history is more relevant than ever,” George says. “As our society grapples with questions of equality, fairness and representation, we have a responsibility to show that American history belongs to all of us, and we should all be a part of the telling and interpretation of it. The opportunity to build on the amazing legacy of American Experience, broaden the scope of the series and continue to grow the range of filmmakers is a dream.”

George comes to WGBH from ABC News where she was Head of Development for Longform projects, responsible for creating a pipeline of docuseries and feature documentary films across Walt Disney Television platforms including ABC News, Hulu, National Geographic and Disney+. Prior to that she launched television operations for digital media start-up OZY Media as Head of Digital Video and TV, by developing and executive producing several broadcast documentary series while also overseeing all daily video production for OZY.com. George spent 12 years at CNN, producing documentaries for CNN Presents and In America, which focused on underserved communities and underreported stories. She was also a founding member of the CNN Original Series and CNN Films team. Earlier in her career she was at NBC News where she produced and wrote for the news magazine Dateline NBC. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Japanese and Political Science from Georgetown University.

AMERICAN EXPERIENCE most recently premiered a major two-part series, The Vote, the dramatic story of the hard-fought campaign waged by American women for the right to vote, a transformative cultural and political movement that resulted in the largest expansion of voting rights in U.S. history.

About WGBH
WGBH Boston is America’s preeminent public broadcaster and the largest producer of PBS content for TV and the Web, including Masterpiece, Antiques Roadshow, Frontline, Nova, American Experience, Arthur, Molly of Denali and more than a dozen other primetime, lifestyle and children’s series. WGBH’s television channels include WGBH 2, WGBX 44, World and Create. WGBH Radio serves listeners across New England with 89.7 WGBH, Boston’s Local NPR®; 99.5 WCRB Classical Radio Boston; and WCAI, the Cape and Islands NPR® Station. WGBH also is a major source of digital content and programs for public radio through PRX, a leader in educational multimedia with PBS LearningMedia™, providing the nation’s educators with free, curriculum-based digital content, and a pioneer in services that make media accessible to deaf, hard of hearing, blind and visually impaired audiences. WGBH has been recognized with hundreds of honors: Emmys, Peabodys, duPont-Columbia Awards and Oscars. Find more information at wgbh.org.

About American Experience
For over 30 years, American Experience has been television’s most-watched history series. Hailed as “peerless” (The Wall Street Journal), “the most consistently enriching program on television” (Chicago Tribune) and “a beacon of intelligence and purpose” (Houston Chronicle), the series brings to life the incredible characters and epic stories that have shaped America’s past and present. American Experience documentaries have been honored with every major broadcast award, including 30 Emmy Awards, four duPont-Columbia Awards and 18 George Foster Peabody Awards; the series received an Academy Award® nomination for Best Documentary Feature in 2015 for Last Days in Vietnam. American Experience also creates original digital content that uses new forms of storytelling to connect our collective past with the present. Visit pbs.org/americanexperience and follow us on Facebook Twitter, Instagram and YouTube to learn more.
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