John Hewitt

Fiction

Satirical fiction always has been my relaxing escape. My years as a newspaper reporter, television news producer, documentary filmmaker and university professor have exposed me to the ironies and absurdities of daily life. My novels often begin with unusual situations drawn from the news and then, adding a little humor, follow the threads from there.

University Teaching

I taught for 32 years in the Broadcast and Electronic Communication Arts Department at San Francisco State University. My specialties included documentary theory and production, broadcast journalism, and international broadcast systems. I also lectured on communication studies for 13 years at Stanford University's Mass Media Institute and internationally in Malaysia, Thailand, Jamaica and Jordan.

I hold a doctorate from the University of San Francisco, a masters in journalism from Columbia University and a BA in history and political science from the University of Santa Clara.

My textbooks: "Air Words: Writing for Broadcast News in the Internet Age" and "Documentary Filmmaking: A Contemporary Field Guide" (co-authored with Gustavo Vazquez) are published by Oxford University Press.

Documentary Filmmaking

I have been producing, editing and shooting documentaries for four decades. The films have been shown internationally, on U.S. Public broadcasting, U.S. commercial television and in film festivals throughout the United States.

The most recent documentaries include: Deadline Every Second, a look at photojournalists around the world; America's Chemical Angels, the story of drug treatments for childhood ADHD; Landmines of the Heart, a probe into the need for political reconciliation in Cambodia, and Inside Sports Illustrated, a three-part look at the classic sports magazine.