June / Sarah

Fifty years after sharing meals in the Currier House dining hall, June Cross talks to Sarah Crichton about the need for mentors and maps on the road to becoming an award-winning documentary producer. 

“I’ve met a college friend of yours—June Cross,” Judy Crichton told her daughter, Sarah, a number of years after graduation. Judy was a groundbreaker—one of the very first female documentary producers at the networks, and by then, at the award-winning unit at WGBH in Boston (American Experience, Frontline, Nova). June Cross had been making her way in the same field—at PBS’ NewsHour, at CBS, and then at WGBH, where Judy became a vital mentor. June was not just struggling with being one of the few women in the field, but also, again and again, “the only Black person in the room.”

The older producer helped the younger trust her instincts and find her compelling voice: June has been nominated for six Emmy awards, for work covering the intersection of poverty, race and politics. She adapted her Emmy Award-winning film about her own family, “Secret Daughter,” aired on Frontline in 1996, into an equally remarkable book.

The mentee has become mentor. Twenty years ago, June founded a program in journalistic documentary at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, while continuing to produce. Her recent documentary Whose Vote Counts aired on Frontline shortly before the 2020 election, and won a prestigious George Foster Peabody Award in June 2021.

"Don’t you get worn down, tackling these tough topics?" Sarah asks June. "Sometimes," June admits, and reminds Sarah of a time when…well, let’s just say June wasn’t thrilled by a clumsy comment Sarah made. But the clumsy comment also motivated June to keep going. “There are stories,” she says, “so important they must be told.”