James Blue

James F. Blue III is a producer in the Koppel Group at the Discovery Channel. In this role, he joins news anchor Ted Koppel and executive producer Tom Bettag, in working with the company’s senior executives to develop a slate of long-form programming – including town hall meetings – that examines some of the most important issues in the world today. James joined the network in January 2006 in London. During the group’s debut season he co-produced the critically acclaimed Iran The Most Dangerous Nation on the decades of mistrust between the U.S. and Iran. This documentary received a national news Emmy award for best long-form informational program. His current production, The People’s Republic of Capitalism, a four-hour series on contemporary China debuts on The Discovery Channel in the summer of 2008.

Prior to joining Discovery, Mr. Blue was an award-winning producer with ABC News for twelve years, most recently based in the network’s London bureau as the Nightline producer. In addition to extensive reporting on the war against terrorism and military affairs, he has produced several series for Nightline including Heart of Darkness, on the 3.5 million people who have perished in an under-reported African civil war; A Matter of Choice, on gays and lesbians in the U.S.; and America in the Red, on the nation’s core economic problems.

During Operation Iraqi Freedom Mr. Blue reported as part of a unilateral team based in southern Iraq. Since the end of large-scale military combat in Iraq, he has frequently returned to the country. In late 2005 he produced a town hall meeting in Baghdad on Iraq’s future that included a panel with those opposed to the coalition presence there. James has reported extensively from overseas.

In the course of his career Mr. Blue’s work has been awarded a George Foster Peabody Award, an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Silver Baton, an Overseas Press Club Award and seven national Emmy awards. In addition, James has twice been selected as a finalist for the Livingstone Award for Young Journalists.

Before joining Nightline in 1994, Mr. Blue spent three years at NBC News as a producer with Today, Now, and other broadcasts. During this period he worked as a guest producer on the Rodney King trial, the Branch Davidian standoff, and Hurricane Andrew. Mr. Blue began his journalism career as a desk assistant at ABC News in New York in 1990.

Mr. Blue is a 1991 graduate of Princeton University where he studied domestic policy in the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. He completed a thesis on the coverage of poverty by the broadcast news networks in the late 1980s. He and his partner John Rowell are the fathers of two South African-born children: a son, Alden, 8 and a daughter, Eleanor Frances, 7. They currently reside in Baltimore, MD.