John Biewen

producer, professor, author

John Biewen (series producer and field producer/North Carolina) has reported on social, cultural, and economic issues from across the United States and in Europe, Japan, and India. He was a correspondent and producer with American RadioWorks, the national documentary unit of American Public Media, from the unit's founding in 1998 until 2006. In 1997-98 he covered the Rocky Mountain West as a staff reporter for NPR News. Biewen began his career in the 1980s, covering agriculture and rural issues for Minnesota Public Radio. In 1990, he co-produced *Season of Discontent*, a Unity Award-winning documentary on the lives of Hispanic farmworkers who migrated between south Texas and northwestern Minnesota, which was broadcast on Marketplace. As an NPR reporter in the West, Biewen reported on ranching and land use issues from Montana to New Mexico. In 2001 he co-produced the American RadioWorks special *The Global Politics of Food*. Biewen has harvested onions with farmworkers near Crystal City, Texas, and processed corn for four summers at a Green Giant plant in southern Minnesota. He is currently a producer, teacher, and director of the audio program at the Center for Documentary Studies (CDS) at Duke University. Biewen is the author of *Reality Radio: Telling True Stories in Sound*, which sheds light on the importance of public radio by discussing various stories and achievements of radio producers.