Ene Riisna (born 27 July 1938) is an Estonian-born American television producer, known for her work on the American news show ''
20/20''.
Early life and education
Ene Riisna was born in
Tallinn
Tallinn is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Estonia, most populous city of Estonia. Situated on a Tallinn Bay, bay in north Estonia, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland of the Baltic Sea, it has a population of (as of 2025) and ...
, Estonia to politician
Eduard Riisna and his wife Olga. Her family fled to Sweden in September 1944 when the
Soviets occupied Estonia.
Riisna earned an Honors degree in English Language and Literature from the
University of Toronto
The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public university, public research university whose main campus is located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park (Toronto), Queen's Park in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It was founded by ...
, University College. She briefly worked, successfully, as a fashion model in Toronto and London, England, then returned to Toronto and became a producer-director for
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (), branded as CBC/Radio-Canada, is the Canadian Public broadcasting, public broadcaster for both radio and television. It is a Crown corporation that serves as the national public broadcaster, with its E ...
in Toronto, then a freelancer for the
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...
in London.
Broadcasting
In 1970, Riisna's first job in network television in America was the executive producer of a new morning program, "Woman", for the
CBS station in New York. The appointment made her one of the first women to create and produce a television news program. Later she produced documentaries for
NBC and
PBS and wrote magazine articles including for ''
MS magazine''.
Riisna became a producer of the well-known news show ''20/20'' at
ABC News ABC News most commonly refers to:
* ABC News (Australia), a national news service of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation
* ABC News (United States), a news-gathering and broadcasting division of the American Broadcasting Company
ABC News may a ...
.
Over the course of the next two decades she produced a series of Emmy Award winning stories, many Barbara Walter’s high profile interviews
["20/20 (TV)"]
''The Paley Center for Media''. (Margaret Thatcher, Boris Yeltsen,
Nancy Reagan, Barbra Streisand and others.) For her work she was awarded over a dozen major awards including two Emmys, a Television Academy General Achievement Award, and Columbia School of Journalism's prestigious
Dupont Award. Her subjects included an investigation of the effects of the use Agent Orange in Vietnam and the story of the
Zumwalt family.
Riisna also produced and directed documentary films for ABC News with anchor
Peter Jennings
Peter Charles Archibald Ewart Jennings (July 29, 1938August 7, 2005) was a Canadian-American television journalist. He was best known for serving as the sole anchor of ''ABC World News Tonight'' from 1983 until his death from lung cancer in 200 ...
as host.
''The Paley Center for Media''.
After retiring from '' 20/20'', Riisna worked with her husband James L. Greenfield who headed the Independent Journalism Foundation, which he created in 1990 for the study of journalism, with centers throughout Eastern Europe, Vietnam and Cambodia. Currently, she serves on the boards of the Turquoise Mountain Foundation and th
George and Nora London Foundation for Singers
References
External links
Independent Journalism Foundation
{{DEFAULTSORT:Riisna, Ene
1938 births
Living people
American television producers
American women television producers
Mass media people from Tallinn
Estonian emigrants to Sweden
Estonian emigrants to the United States
Estonian World War II refugees
University of Toronto alumni
21st-century American women