Paul Jay (born 1951) is a

journalist A journalist is a person who gathers information in the form of text, audio or pictures, processes it into a newsworthy form and disseminates it to the public. This is called journalism. Roles Journalists can work in broadcast, print, advertis ...

filmmaker Filmmaking or film production is the process by which a Film, motion picture is produced. Filmmaking involves a number of complex and discrete stages, beginning with an initial story, idea, or commission. Production then continues through screen ...

, is the founder, editor-in-chief, and host of theAnalysis.news, a news analysis service. He was the founder, CEO and senior editor of

The Real News Network The Real News Network (TRNN) is a news organization based in Baltimore, Maryland, that covers both national and international news. It includes both for-profit arm and non-profit organizations. History TRNN was founded by documentary producer ...

(TRNN). Jay was born and raised in

Toronto Toronto ( , locally pronounced or ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most populous city in Canada. It is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a p ...

, Ontario and holds dual-citizenship with the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

. Jay is the nephew of screenwriter

Ted Allan Alan Herman (January 26, 1916 – June 29, 1995), known professionally as Ted Allan, was a Canadian screenwriter, author, and poet, several of whose books were made into motion pictures. In 1975, he received a nomination for the Academy Award for ...

. A past chair of the Canadian Independent Film Caucus (now called

DOC DOC, Doc, doc or DoC may refer to: People and characters * Doc, an abbreviation of doctor * Doc (nickname) * Doc (mascot), the Towson University mascot Persons * The D.O.C., American rapper (born 1968) * Doc Gallows (born 1983), ring nam ...

), the main organization of documentary filmmakers in Canada, Jay is the founding chair of the

Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival The Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival is the largest documentary festival in North America. The event takes place annually in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The 27th edition of the festival took place online throughout May and Jun ...

. He chaired the Hot Docs! board for its first five years.

Early life

Jay dropped out of high school at sixteen years of age and never received any formal training in filmmaking. He became interested in the subject after attending an experimental free school, where he had the opportunity to create a short film. He gained experience by shooting sports footage for Canadian broadcast television before going on to produce his own content.

Film and television work

''Never-Endum Referendum'' ( CTV, SRC,

Arte Arte (, , ; ' ('), sometimes stylised in lowercase or uppercase in its logo) is a European Union, European public service Television channel, channel dedicated to culture. It is made up of three separate companies: the Strasbourg-based Europea ...

, 1997), is a feature-length documentary, on the

1995 Quebec referendum The 1995 Quebec referendum was the second referendum to ask voters in the predominantly French-speaking Canadian province of Quebec whether Quebec should proclaim sovereignty and become an independent country, with the condition precedent of ...

over the question of seceding from Canada. It was called "a moving, masterful piece of film-making about a tough subject" by Tony Atherton of the ''Ottawa Citizen''. Jay's '' Hitman Hart: Wrestling with Shadows'' (1998), a feature-length documentary about pro wrestler

Bret Hart Bret Sergeant Hart (born July 2, 1957) is a Canadian retired professional wrestler. A member of the Hart wrestling family and a second-generation wrestler, he has an amateur wrestling background at Ernest Manning High School and Mount Royal U ...

, was screened in 25 major

festivals A festival is an event celebrated by a community and centering on some characteristic aspect or aspects of that community and its religion or cultures. It is often marked as a local or national holiday, Melā, mela, or Muslim holidays, eid. A ...

and won more than a dozen awards. It has been called "one of the most acclaimed Canadian films in years" by ''

eye magazine ''Eye'' magazine is a quarterly print magazine on graphic design and visual culture. History First published in London in 1990, ''Eye'' was founded by Rick Poynor, a prolific writer on graphic design and visual communication. Poynor edited t ...

'', "A tale as bizarre as Kafka and as tragic as Shakespeare" (''

Ottawa Citizen The ''Ottawa Citizen'' is an English-language daily newspaper owned by Postmedia Network in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. History Established as the Bytown ''Packet'' in 1845 by William Harris (journalist), William Harris, it was renamed the ''Ci ...

'') and "one of the best films of 1998" (

Peter Plagens Peter Plagens (born 1941) is an American artist, art critic, and novelist based in New York City.Online Archive of CaliforniaPeter Plagens papers, 1938-2014 Retrieved January 18, 2018.Smith, Roberta''The New York Times'', February 7, 2018. Retrie ...

, art critic for ''

Newsweek ''Newsweek'' is an American weekly news magazine based in New York City. Founded as a weekly print magazine in 1933, it was widely distributed during the 20th century and has had many notable editors-in-chief. It is currently co-owned by Dev P ...

''). ''Hitman'' was produced in cooperation with the National Film Board of Canada, TVOntario, The 'A' Channel, CTV, A&E, BBC's '' Storyville'' series, and ''La Sept/Arte''. Jay also appeared in interview segments in another

documentary which came out in 2010, '' Bret Hart: Survival of the Hitman''. ''Lost in Las Vegas'' (2001) is a feature-length documentary for A&E. "Equal parts hilarious, heroic and heartfelt... often surprising, occasionally inspiring, frequently hilarious... You've got to see this thing to believe it. It's so good", wrote Rob Salem of ''

The Toronto Star The ''Toronto Star'' is a Canadian English-language broadsheet daily newspaper. It is owned by Toronto Star Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary of Torstar Corporation and part of Torstar's Daily News Brands division. The newspaper was establis ...

''. ''Return to Kandahar'' (2003), a feature-length

documentary A documentary film (often described simply as a documentary) is a nonfiction Film, motion picture intended to "document reality, primarily for instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". The American author and ...

, was co-directed with

Nelofer Pazira Nilofar Pazira () is an Afghan-Canadian director, actress, journalist and author. Biography Nelofer Pazira was born in 1973 in Hyderabad, India, where her Afghan father was then working with the World Health Organization. She grew up in Kabul ...

, star of the movie ''

Kandahar Kandahar is a city in Afghanistan, located in the south of the country on Arghandab River, at an elevation of . It is Afghanistan's second largest city, after Kabul, with a population of about 614,118 in 2015. It is the capital of Kandahar Pro ...

'' (2001). Although ''Kandahar'' was fictional, ''Return to Kandahar'' follows Pazira's return to

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. It is bordered by Pakistan to the Durand Line, east and south, Iran to the Afghanistan–Iran borde ...

in search of her childhood friend; her first attempt inspired the fictional movie. ''RTK'' won the Donald Brittain Gemini award for best social political documentary. Jay was the creator and executive producer of

CBC Newsworld CBC News Network (formerly CBC Newsworld) is a Canadian English-language specialty news channel owned by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). It is Canada's first all-news channel, and the world's third-oldest television service of this ...

's flagship debate program ''

counterSpin ''CounterSpin'' may refer to: * ''CounterSpin'' (TV series), a Canadian TV program 1998–2004 * ''CounterSpin'', an American weekly radio program produced by Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR) is a progres ...

'' (broadcast from 1998 to 2004) for six seasons. CounterSpin was a prime time debate show about the news of the day. Other work includes ''

Justice Denied ''Justice Denied'' is the only regularly published print magazine in the world solely devoted to issues related to wrongful convictions. The magazine prints stories about wrongful convictions, miscarriages of justice, and criminal justice issues ...

'' (Turner), ''

The Life and Death of Owen Hart Paul Jay (born 1951) is a journalist, filmmaker, is the founder, editor-in-chief, and host of theAnalysis.news, a news analysis service. He was the founder, CEO and senior editor of The Real News Network (TRNN). Jay was born and raised in Toront ...

'' (TVO, A&E), ''Albanian Journey: End of an Era'' (TVOntario, CBC Witness), ''The Birth of Language'' (TVOntario and Discovery U.S.), ''Here's to the Cowboy'' (CBC, Disney, London Weekend, Central TV). Jay exec-produced ''Through Thick and Thin'' (CBCNewsworld), ''Machine Gun'' (3x1 Discovery Canada&US), and ''The Famine Within'' (TVO). Jay was the co-creator and co-executive producer of ''Face Off'', a nightly prime time debate program that ran four years on

. He worked with

Gore Vidal Eugene Luther Gore Vidal ( ; born Eugene Louis Vidal, October 3, 1925 – July 31, 2012) was an American writer and public intellectual known for his acerbic epigrammatic wit. His novels and essays interrogated the Social norm, social and sexual ...

, among others, for the launch of TRNN, which included the documentary: ''History of the National Security State''. In this, Jay interviewed Vidal, as well as

Lawrence Wilkerson Lawrence B. Wilkerson (born June 15, 1945) is a retired United States Army Colonel and former chief of staff to United States Secretary of State Colin Powell. Since the end of his military career, Wilkerson has criticized many aspects of the Iraq ...

Ray McGovern Raymond McGovern (born August 25, 1939) is an American political Activism, activist and former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer. McGovern was a CIA analyst from 1963 to 1990, and in the 1980s chaired National Intelligence Estimates and pa ...

, and Antonia Juhasz. The Real News went on to launch several internet video/television

news magazine A news magazine is a typed, printed, and published magazine, radio, or television program, usually published weekly, consisting of articles about current events. News magazines generally discuss stories in greater depth than newspapers or new ...

s, including '' The Empire Files'', created in 2015 with

teleSUR Telesur (stylized as teleSUR) is a Latin American terrestrial and satellite news television network headquartered in Caracas, Venezuela, and sponsored by the governments of Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua. First proposed in 2005 and subsidized ...

and for which Jay was an executive producer. Jay was the executive producer of the 2017 ''Donald Trump, The Koch Brothers and Their War on Climate Science'' documentary. Jay parted ways with TRNN in 2019 and founded of theAnalysis.news, a video and audio current affairs interview and commentary show and website.

References

External links

Paul Jay on The Real News
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Jay, Paul 1951 births Jewish Canadian journalists Canadian television journalists Living people Journalists from Toronto Canadian documentary film directors Film directors from Toronto Canadian documentary film producers Jewish Canadian film people