Jack Dodson

I’m a freelance journalist and documentary filmmaker living in NYC, and I’ve been working as a reporter in various media since 2009. I am currently a student at the Columbia Journalism School in both the Documentary and Stabile Center for Investigative Reporting programs.

My particular interest as a reporter is in issues of poverty and international development, as well as climate change and how it impacts poor communities. These interests inform my reporting on immigration, health and drug abuse.

I'm currently working on a short documentary for Columbia about the criminal justice system in the U.S., and the people affected by its failings.

I spent a year as a researcher/PA on the recent Alex Gibney film, “Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine,” which was distributed by CNN Films. And in 2015, I made a 30-minute film for Preble Street, a nonprofit in Portland, Maine, focused on providing services for homeless and underserved populations.

I grew up on the coast of Maine, did my undergrad in North Carolina, and spent some time in India to make a documentary called “Health for All.” The project caught the eye of the team consulting for Turkey’s Expo 2020 bid, and we worked with them to screen the film at the OECD in 2012. The government of Turkey later donated $100,000 to our partners in India to build a health worker training facility, allowing them to increase the scale of their work.

Before that, I was part of a team of three students who created a 50-minute documentary called “The Elephant in the Room,” a film about environmental issues in Sri Lanka — we spent three weeks traveling and talking to experts about their work.

I’ve served as the news editor at Elon University’s student newspaper in 2010, the news director at the student radio station in 2011, and as a reporting intern at community newspapers in Maine and North Carolina.