Dari Jill Mandell, NJN Associate Producer, Wins
National Cine Golden Eagle Award and Is Nominated
for a New York Emmy

STATEWIDE –NJN Public Television and Radio is pleased to announce that Dari Jill Mandell is the recipient of a national CINE Golden Eagle Award and a New York Emmy Award nomination for her role as associate producer for The Race for Open Space. This one-hour documentary, narrated by Good Morning America ’s Charles Gibson, examines the harmful effects of sprawl on the environment and the importance of preserving open space. The show will air on PBS stations nationally beginning this April.

The CINE Awards recognizes excellence in documentary and other informational film and video production. Past CINE Award recipients have included Steven Spielberg and George Lucas as well as Charles Guggenheim and Frederick Wiseman. The awards will be presented at a ceremony on April 22 in Washington , DC .

The New York Chapter of the National Television Academy announces the Emmy Award winners on March 28 in New York City . The Race for Open Space was nominated in the category of Environmental Programming.

Mandell is a field producer and associate producer at NJN Public Television. She is the on-air talent and writer for the weekly segment, Here Comes the Weekend, and produces NJ Treasure Spots. Mandell has acted as associate producer and/or field producer on a variety of NJN programs, including Teen Smoke, Strength in Numbers: Women Building Community, and NJN News Election Night Live Coverage as well as an up-coming documentary on the New Jersey Highlands. In addition, she is a contributing segment producer for the Emmy Award-winning series, Classroom Close-Up.

Mandell came to NJN Public Television as the 2001 Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation Journalism Resident. She was chosen for this position in a national search from among other young broadcast journalists. She graduated from the Phillip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland with a bachelor's degree in broadcast journalism

As a college student, Mandell reported, produced and anchored Maryland Newsline, a nightly news program which broadcasts to suburban Maryland and Washington D.C. She produced the documentary Smith Island: Tides of Change, for which she received the SPJ Mark of Excellence Award for Best Feature and Best Feature Photography. Mandell is a resident of Yardley, Pennsylvania .

In addition to Mandell, other NJN staff who received New York Emmy Award nominations for The Race for Open Space are Lynn Kosek Walker, producer and writer; Janice Selinger , executive producer; and Sia Nyorkor, associate producer. The CINE Golden Eagle Award acknowledges the entire production team along with Steve Oleszek , graphic artist, and Tim Hufnell, editor. Funding for The Race for Open Space was provided by the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation.