Bill Lichtenstein - Lichtenstein Creative Media

Lichtenstein Creative Media

Lichtenstein founded the Peabody Award-winning Lichtenstein Creative Media, Inc., in 1990. The company produced the "Voices of an Illness", a documentary series about people who were living with, and recovered from, serious mental illness. The series "set new standards of scientific accuracy in media coverage of mental health," according to the National Institute of Mental Health, and was called "remarkable" in a feature article in Time magazine.

Lichtenstein Creative Media produced "If I Get Out Alive", narrated by Academy Award-winning actress and youth advocate Diane Keaton. The documentary revealed the conditions and brutality faced by young people incarcerated in the adult correctional system. The program was honored with a National Headliner Award and a Casey Medal for Meritorious Journalism.

Bill Lichtenstein produced and was director of photography of the award-winning documentary film, "West 47th Street.", which aired on PBS' P.O.V., and was called "must see" by Newsweek. The film won the Atlanta and DC Independent Film Festivals., and an Honorable Mention at the Woodstock Film Festival.

Lichtenstein created and was senior executive producer of the national, one-hour weekly public radio series, The Infinite Mind, which for a decade starting in 1998 examined all aspects of neuroscience, mental health, and the mind. The series looked at "how the brain works, and why it sometimes does not, covering mental health, neuroscience and the mind/body connection from scientific, cultural and policy perspectives," and was public radio's most honored and listened to health and science program.

"The Infinite Mind" was hosted by Dr. Fred Goodwin, the former head of the National Institute of Mental Health; Dr. Peter Kramer, author of the best-selling "Listening to Prozac," and John Hockenberry, and broke ground and news on such topics as: Addiction; Aspergers Syndrome; Alzheimer's; Bullying; Chronic Fatigue Syndrome; Depression; Mental Health and Immigrants; Post Traumatic Stress Disorder; Postpartum Depression; and Teen Suicide. The national broadcast was widely hailed for its coverage of the mental health impact of the 9/11 attacks, and for providing needed resources to public radio listeners.

In addition to researchers and experts, "The Infinite Mind" built a broad audience by featuring leading scientists and researchers, and notable guests, on a wide variety of topics including John Updike (sleep); actors including Carrie Fisher (living with bipolar); comedians Richard Lewis (addiction) and Lewis Black (anger); the Firesign Theater (humor); author William Styron and his wife Rose Styron (depression); baseball batting champ Wade Boggs (sports psychology); former First Lady Rosalynn Carter (stigma); and live performances and discussions with musicians including Aimee Mann, Jessye Norman, Judy Collins, Suzanne Vega, Loudon Wainwright III, Philip Glass, and Emanuel Ax. The decade-long series received major funding from the MacArthur Foundation, the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health.

Lichtenstein serves as a judge for the National News Emmy Awards, and as a screener/reviewer for the duPont Awards. He is on the Advisory Board of the Rosalynn Carter Fellowships for Mental Health Journalism; the National Leadership Council of the National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression (now known as the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation); the advisory council of the Center for the Advancement of Children's Mental Health at Columbia University; review committees at the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation; and advisory boards of Families for Depression Awareness and the Parents/Professionals Advocacy League.

Lichtenstein's work, and that of Lichtenstein Creative Media, has been honored with the top media awards from the major national mental health organizations, including the National Institute of Mental Health; American Psychiatric Association; National Mental Health Association; National Alliance on Mental Illness; American College of Neuropsychopharmacology; and the National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression.

Lichtenstein's company pioneered the uses as public media of on-line 3-D virtual world, including Second Life. Lichtenstein Creative Media produced the first ever concert and live radio broadcast from Second Life in August 2006, with singer Suzanne Vega and author Kurt Vonnegut, who both appeared in avatar form.

Subsequent events produced by Lichtenstein Creative Media in Second Life include a live press conference with Italian Minister of Infrastructure Antonio Di Pietra, and a live town meeting on Darfur with Mia Farrow, produced in partnership with the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. BusinessWeek magazine cited Lichtenstein as one of eight "Savvy CEO's Who Hang Out in Second Life", along with IBM's CEO Sam Palmisano and former Virginia Governor Mark Warner. Lichtenstein wrote the essay "The Transmission of Experience," identifying interactive 3-D virtual reality experiences such as Second Life as being the first to "transmit experience" over distances. Lichtenstein Creative Media maintains a 16-acre virtual broadcast center in Second Life.

From 1980 to 2006, Lichtenstein taught investigative reporting for TV and documentary film production at The New School in New York City.