Biography
David Lewis’ has worked in every non-fiction format, from documentaries to breaking news, from commercials to films for non-profits. He’s been a CNN correspondent, a news-magazine producer and an independent film director. As a CNN investigative reporter, he won multiple awards while working across the US and the globe, from the jungles of India to caverns in Mexico, Beirut to Belgrade. In 2001, Lewis launched his own production company and began telling stories for a wide range of both broadcast and non-broadcast clients. These have ranged from 60 Minutes to CNBC to Dan Rather Reports to the Gospel Music Channel, from the University of Pennsylvania to Spelman College to national broadcast commercials. The common link between all Lewis’ work is that Lewis gets people to tell their stories.
Lewis’ career began at the ABC News documentary unit. He next produced investigative stories for World News Tonight with Peter Jennings, covering everything from the Iran-Contra Affair, to the Savings and Loan scandal to organized crime. Programs he worked on at ABC news were recognized with Headliner, Emmy and Peabody awards, and a DuPont-Columbia Citation.
In 1990 Lewis went to CNN as an investigative correspondent where he worked on documentaries and magazine pieces on subjects ranging from secret government agencies to jazz, levees to microbes, illegal narcotics to performing bears. Lewis was also the first “long-form” correspondent to be called to help on CNN’s biggest breaking news stories, such as the (first) Gulf War, the Oklahoma City bombing and the Bush-Gore Florida recount. Lewis’ CNN work won Emmy, Headliner, Shorenstein-Barone and Cable-Ace awards, among many others.
Since leaving CNN shortly before 9/11, Lewis’ documentary work has focused on terrorism, including a Frontline film on Hezbollah and two CNN projects, “Nuclear Terror” and “Winning the War on Terrorism.” His magazine pieces have had a broader range: serial murderers in Mexico for 20/20; problems with nuclear waste disposal for 60 Minutes; an Emmy-nominated CNBC story on how golf was used as an urban renewal tool. A second CNBC piece was about financial crimes and terrorist-financing in Latin America’s Tri-Border region. He also Senior-Produced three specials for Bill O’Reilly that ran on the FOX Network. His most recent broadcast documentary was an hour program for the Gospel Music Channel.
As a sideline Lewis works for an Atlanta AM radio station where his assignment is to “interview anyone [you] want about anything”. His guests have well-known figures such as Salman Rushdie, Cornel West, Bill O’Reilly, Kitty Kelley and Triumph the Insult Comic Dog as well as many spies and government and civilian leaders in the world’s hotspots as well as cultural figures. These include the most-decorated Case Officer in the history of the CIA, security company leaders in Iraq and Afghanistan and comedians, jazz musicians and hip-hoppers like Grandmaster Flash. (You can listen to some of his interviews here.)
In 1993 Lewis was the first CNN journalist to be awarded the Nieman Fellowship in Journalism at Harvard University. Lewis’ love affair with documentaries had begun as a Harvard undergrad (1980 cum laude) and one of his college films, “From Harlem To Harvard” is still in distribution.
David Lewis lives in Atlanta with his wife and three children. His idea of fun is to take a group of friends to Lebanon and introduce them to the most lively night-life in the world and also to representatives of Hezbollah and Hamas.