Justin Kenny

Justin Kenny is an award-winning television news producer, documentary film director, and writer based in Washington, DC. In 2017, he directed and wrote his first feature documentary, The New Barbarianism. The film was a collaboration with the Center for Strategic and International Studies and examines the under-reported phenomenon of attacks on health care in today's wars. From 2012 to 2015, Kenny was the Senior Foreign Affairs & Defense Producer/Editor for the PBS NewsHour. During his tenure, the program doubled the amount of original overseas on the ground reporting and his work received some of America's top broadcasting honors. Kenny led the NewsHour's coverage of the civil war in Syria, the rise and fight against the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, Ukraine crisis, Iran nuclear negotiations, overthrow of Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi, death of Nelson Mandela, the Paris terror attacks and the European migrant/refugee crisis. As Senior Producer/Editor, Kenny has won a George Foster Peabody Award for the NewsHour's 'Desperate Journey' series which examined the root causes of the migrant/refugee crisis and its effects on several European nations; an Emmy for Outstanding Business and Economic Reporting in a Regularly Scheduled Newscast for 'Who's behind the Chinese takeover of the world's biggest pork producer?;' An Emmy for Outstanding Investigative Journalism in a Regularly Scheduled Newscast for 'Hazardous Work: Diving into the Philippines' Dangerous Underwater Mines (a collaboration with the Pulitzer Center and Photographer Larry Price)'; First Place Continuing Coverage of a Major News Event National Headliner Award for 'No End in Sight: Fighting ISIS' and a Hard News Feature Grand Winner Gracies Award for 'Escape From Terror' - a story about female sex slaves who managed to break free from the clutches of ISIS. Prior to his time at the NewsHour, he spent 15 years with Reuters Television - first as a producer and later as an editor overseeing North American coverage. Kenny is a PBS NewsHour contributor and in 2016 launched his own production company Small Footprint Films. He is a graduate of Marymount University where he was the 2016 Marya McLaughlin Lecturer in Media Communications.