Jon Duncanson
Encyclopedia
Jon Duncanson is a former American broadcaster who worked for many years as a television News presenter
and reporter in Chicago
.
, Duncanson earned a bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Minnesota
.
, Nicaragua
and El Salvador
, working for UPI with occasional assignments from Time
Magazine. He then worked as a television reporter and presenter for WDIO-TV
in Duluth
from 1984 until 1985, WFTV-TV in Orlando
from 1985 until 1988, and KCRA-TV
in Sacramento
from 1988 until 1992. He also traveled through Croatia
in November 1992 and taped the fighting in that country on his home video camera, winning an Emmy Award
in the San Francisco/Northern California region. In total he covered wars as a free-lance reporter in Nicaragua, El Salvador and Honduras and later in Colombia for KCRA-TV(NBC) as well as Croatia, Bosnia and Serbia for KCRA and for WBBM-TV and WFLD-TV in Chicago. On 24 February 1992 he joined WBBM-TV
in Chicago as a general assignment reporter. He won two more Emmys in the Chicago/Midwest region for reports from Bosnia. In 1994 his efforts were documented in the French film The Troubles We've Seen - A History of Journalism in Wartime, by academy award-winning director Marcel Ophuls
. The film received the International Critics' Award at the Montreal World Film Festival
.
In September 1995 Duncanson left WBBM-TV after choosing not to accept a contract renewal. In late October 1995 he was hired by WFLD-TV in Chicago as a 6 am news presenter, which also included providing special reports for the station's 9 pm newscast. The following year he became news presenter for WFLD's 7 am to 9 am newscast also.
In 1996 Duncanson made a cameo appearance in the movie Primal Fear
as a location reporter.
In August 1997 Duncanson and his wife, TV presenter/reporter Sylvia Gomez, left WFLD to travel the world together. They traveled to Yugoslavia
, England
, France
, Italy
, India
, Thailand
, China
, Panama
, Peru
and Mexico
, logging more than 30,000 miles over a five-year period. Nine months were spent sailing from San Francisco, into the Sea of Cortez
off Baja Mexico, ending up in Puerto Vallarta
, where they purchased a seaside villa. After their first child was born in 2002 the couple received an offer from NBC News
and settled down in Los Angeles
and began working again as correspondents on a full-time free-lance basis.
In 2003 Duncanson and Gomez returned to Chicago's airwaves, rejoining WBBM-TV on 30 June 2003 as husband-and-wife weekend news presenters and general assignment reporters. Duncanson won his fourth Emmy covering the tsunami
in 2005 reporting from Banda Aceh
, Indonesia
. In January 2006 Duncanson and Gomez were moved from their weekend news anchoring duties to full-time general assignment reporting duties. Duncanson was a returning guest lecturer on Journalism and Media Issues at Columbia College
in Chicago, as well as at Northwestern University
's Medill School of Journalism
. He served as Master of Ceremonies for [the University of Chicago Hospitals Cancer Survivors Day event for three consecutive years. The couple left WBBM-TV at the end of 2006 and moved to their home in Mexico.
In 2007 Duncanson was named the public relations chief of a Mexican importer/exporter and national distributor of liquor.
Since January 2007 Duncanson and Gomez have been running Aviana Productions, a video/strategic media company in the San Francisco Bay Area and Mexico. In March 2009 Duncanson was invited to the West Wing
of the White House
and discussed how the Obama Administration could use viral video
and social media to promote its political image and agenda. In 2010 the couple produced a campaign film and served as advisors for Mario Lopez Valdez, the sitting federal senator from Sinaloa, Mexico, in his campaign for governor there. In a surprise upset, Lopez Valdez won the election. In July 2010 Duncanson and Gomez, through Aviana Productions, won a North American Aegis Award for a marketing film produced with golfing legend Jack Nicklaus
. At year's end the couple won two more Aegis Awards for films produced for the luxury Mexican resorts Palmasola, and Imanta Resorts, both located near Puerto Vallarta.
The couple have homes in California and in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.
News presenter
A news presenter is a person who presents news during a news program in the format of a television show, on the radio or the Internet.News presenters can work in a radio studio, television studio and from remote broadcasts in the field especially weather...
and reporter in Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
.
Early life and education
A native of MinnesotaMinnesota
Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...
, Duncanson earned a bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Minnesota
University of Minnesota
The University of Minnesota, Twin Cities is a public research university located in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, United States. It is the oldest and largest part of the University of Minnesota system and has the fourth-largest main campus student body in the United States, with 52,557...
.
Professional career
Duncanson began his career working for Greenpeace International. In 1983 he began his journalistic career as a free lance photographer in HondurasHonduras
Honduras is a republic in Central America. It was previously known as Spanish Honduras to differentiate it from British Honduras, which became the modern-day state of Belize...
, Nicaragua
Nicaragua
Nicaragua is the largest country in the Central American American isthmus, bordered by Honduras to the north and Costa Rica to the south. The country is situated between 11 and 14 degrees north of the Equator in the Northern Hemisphere, which places it entirely within the tropics. The Pacific Ocean...
and El Salvador
El Salvador
El Salvador or simply Salvador is the smallest and the most densely populated country in Central America. The country's capital city and largest city is San Salvador; Santa Ana and San Miguel are also important cultural and commercial centers in the country and in all of Central America...
, working for UPI with occasional assignments from Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
Magazine. He then worked as a television reporter and presenter for WDIO-TV
WDIO-TV
WDIO-DT and WIRT-DT are the ABC and Me-TV-affiliated television stations for North Central and Northeastern Minnesota, and Northwestern Wisconsin...
in Duluth
Duluth, Minnesota
Duluth is a port city in the U.S. state of Minnesota and is the county seat of Saint Louis County. The fourth largest city in Minnesota, Duluth had a total population of 86,265 in the 2010 census. Duluth is also the second largest city that is located on Lake Superior after Thunder Bay, Ontario,...
from 1984 until 1985, WFTV-TV in Orlando
Orlando, Florida
Orlando is a city in the central region of the U.S. state of Florida. It is the county seat of Orange County, and the center of the Greater Orlando metropolitan area. According to the 2010 US Census, the city had a population of 238,300, making Orlando the 79th largest city in the United States...
from 1985 until 1988, and KCRA-TV
KCRA-TV
KCRA-TV, channel 3, is a television station in Sacramento, California, United States. KCRA-TV is owned by Hearst Television, a subsidiary of the Hearst Corporation, and is an affiliate of the NBC television network...
in Sacramento
Sacramento, California
Sacramento is the capital city of the U.S. state of California and the county seat of Sacramento County. It is located at the confluence of the Sacramento River and the American River in the northern portion of California's expansive Central Valley. With a population of 466,488 at the 2010 census,...
from 1988 until 1992. He also traveled through Croatia
Croatia
Croatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...
in November 1992 and taped the fighting in that country on his home video camera, winning an Emmy Award
Emmy Award
An Emmy Award, often referred to simply as the Emmy, is a television production award, similar in nature to the Peabody Awards but more focused on entertainment, and is considered the television equivalent to the Academy Awards and the Grammy Awards .A majority of Emmys are presented in various...
in the San Francisco/Northern California region. In total he covered wars as a free-lance reporter in Nicaragua, El Salvador and Honduras and later in Colombia for KCRA-TV(NBC) as well as Croatia, Bosnia and Serbia for KCRA and for WBBM-TV and WFLD-TV in Chicago. On 24 February 1992 he joined WBBM-TV
WBBM-TV
WBBM-TV, virtual channel 2 , is the CBS owned-and-operated television station in Chicago, Illinois. WBBM-TV's main studios and offices are located in The Loop section of Chicago, as part of the development at Block 37, and its transmitter is atop the Willis Tower.-History:WBBM-TV traces its history...
in Chicago as a general assignment reporter. He won two more Emmys in the Chicago/Midwest region for reports from Bosnia. In 1994 his efforts were documented in the French film The Troubles We've Seen - A History of Journalism in Wartime, by academy award-winning director Marcel Ophuls
Marcel Ophuls
Marcel Ophüls is a documentary film maker and former actor.He was born in Frankfurt, Germany, the son of the director Max Ophüls...
. The film received the International Critics' Award at the Montreal World Film Festival
Montreal World Film Festival
The Montreal World Film Festival , founded in 1977, is one of Canada's oldest international film festivals and the only competitive film festival in North America accredited by the FIAPF...
.
In September 1995 Duncanson left WBBM-TV after choosing not to accept a contract renewal. In late October 1995 he was hired by WFLD-TV in Chicago as a 6 am news presenter, which also included providing special reports for the station's 9 pm newscast. The following year he became news presenter for WFLD's 7 am to 9 am newscast also.
In 1996 Duncanson made a cameo appearance in the movie Primal Fear
Primal Fear (film)
Primal Fear is a 1996 American crime drama thriller film directed by Gregory Hoblit and starring Richard Gere and Edward Norton. The film tells the story of a defense attorney, Martin Vail , who defends an altar boy, Aaron Stampler , charged with the murder of a Catholic archbishop. The movie is an...
as a location reporter.
In August 1997 Duncanson and his wife, TV presenter/reporter Sylvia Gomez, left WFLD to travel the world together. They traveled to Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia refers to three political entities that existed successively on the western part of the Balkans during most of the 20th century....
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
, India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
, Thailand
Thailand
Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...
, China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
, Panama
Panama
Panama , officially the Republic of Panama , is the southernmost country of Central America. Situated on the isthmus connecting North and South America, it is bordered by Costa Rica to the northwest, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean Sea to the north and the Pacific Ocean to the south. The...
, Peru
Peru
Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....
and Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
, logging more than 30,000 miles over a five-year period. Nine months were spent sailing from San Francisco, into the Sea of Cortez
Gulf of California
The Gulf of California is a body of water that separates the Baja California Peninsula from the Mexican mainland...
off Baja Mexico, ending up in Puerto Vallarta
Puerto Vallarta
Puerto Vallarta is a Mexican balneario resort city situated on the Pacific Ocean's Bahía de Banderas.The 2010 census reported Puerto Vallarta's population as 255,725 making it the sixth-largest city in the state of Jalisco...
, where they purchased a seaside villa. After their first child was born in 2002 the couple received an offer from NBC News
NBC News
NBC News is the news division of American television network NBC. It first started broadcasting in February 21, 1940. NBC Nightly News has aired from Studio 3B, located on floors 3 of the NBC Studios is the headquarters of the GE Building forms the centerpiece of 30th Rockefeller Center it is...
and settled down in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
and began working again as correspondents on a full-time free-lance basis.
In 2003 Duncanson and Gomez returned to Chicago's airwaves, rejoining WBBM-TV on 30 June 2003 as husband-and-wife weekend news presenters and general assignment reporters. Duncanson won his fourth Emmy covering the tsunami
Tsunami
A tsunami is a series of water waves caused by the displacement of a large volume of a body of water, typically an ocean or a large lake...
in 2005 reporting from Banda Aceh
Banda Aceh
Banda Aceh is the provincial capital and largest city in the province of Aceh, Indonesia, located on the island of Sumatra, with an elevation of 35 meters. The city regency covers an area of 64 square kilometres and according to the 2000 census had a population of 219,070 people...
, Indonesia
Indonesia
Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...
. In January 2006 Duncanson and Gomez were moved from their weekend news anchoring duties to full-time general assignment reporting duties. Duncanson was a returning guest lecturer on Journalism and Media Issues at Columbia College
Columbia College Chicago
Columbia College Chicago is one of the largest art colleges in the United States with nearly 12,000 students pursuing degrees within 120 undergraduate and graduate programs...
in Chicago, as well as at Northwestern University
Northwestern University
Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston and Chicago, Illinois, USA. Northwestern has eleven undergraduate, graduate, and professional schools offering 124 undergraduate degrees and 145 graduate and professional degrees....
's Medill School of Journalism
Medill School of Journalism
The Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications is a constituent school of Northwestern University which offers both undergraduate and graduate programs. It has consistently been one of the top-ranked schools in Journalism in the United States...
. He served as Master of Ceremonies for [the University of Chicago Hospitals Cancer Survivors Day event for three consecutive years. The couple left WBBM-TV at the end of 2006 and moved to their home in Mexico.
In 2007 Duncanson was named the public relations chief of a Mexican importer/exporter and national distributor of liquor.
Since January 2007 Duncanson and Gomez have been running Aviana Productions, a video/strategic media company in the San Francisco Bay Area and Mexico. In March 2009 Duncanson was invited to the West Wing
West Wing
The West Wing is the building housing the official offices of the President of the United States. It is the part of the White House Complex in which the Oval Office, the Cabinet Room, the Situation Room, and the Roosevelt Room are located...
of the White House
White House
The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical...
and discussed how the Obama Administration could use viral video
Viral video
A viral video is one that becomes popular through the process of Internet sharing, typically through video sharing websites, social media and email...
and social media to promote its political image and agenda. In 2010 the couple produced a campaign film and served as advisors for Mario Lopez Valdez, the sitting federal senator from Sinaloa, Mexico, in his campaign for governor there. In a surprise upset, Lopez Valdez won the election. In July 2010 Duncanson and Gomez, through Aviana Productions, won a North American Aegis Award for a marketing film produced with golfing legend Jack Nicklaus
Jack Nicklaus
Jack William Nicklaus , nicknamed "The Golden Bear", is an American professional golfer. He won 18 career major championships on the PGA Tour over a span of 25 years and is widely regarded as one of the greatest professional golfers of all time. In addition to his 18 Majors, he was runner-up a...
. At year's end the couple won two more Aegis Awards for films produced for the luxury Mexican resorts Palmasola, and Imanta Resorts, both located near Puerto Vallarta.
Personal
In 1992, Duncanson began dating Chicago TV reporter Sylvia Gomez. The couple was engaged early in 1995, and married on October 13, 1995 in a ceremony presided over by Cook County Clerk and former Chicago Mayor David Orr. Their first child, Ian Gomez Duncanson, was born in June 2002.The couple have homes in California and in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.