Ene Riisna (born 27 June 1938) is an

Estonia Estonia, formally the Republic of Estonia, is a country by the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, an ...

n-born American television producer. She is known for her work on the American news show ''

20/20 Visual acuity (VA) commonly refers to the clarity of vision, but technically rates an examinee's ability to recognize small details with precision. Visual acuity is dependent on optical and neural factors, i.e. (1) the sharpness of the retinal ...

''.

Early life and education

Ene Riisna was born in Tallinn,

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 research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution ...

, 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 (french: Société Radio-Canada), branded as CBC/Radio-Canada, is a Canadian public broadcaster for both radio and television. It is a federal Crown corporation that receives funding from the governmen ...

in Toronto, then a freelancer for the BBC 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 ''Ms.'' is an American feminist magazine co-founded in 1971 by journalist and social/political activist Gloria Steinem. It was the first national American feminist magazine. The original editors were Letty Cottin Pogrebin, Mary Thom, Patricia C ...

''. Riisna became a producer of the well-known news show ''20/20'' at

ABC News ABC News is the news division of the American broadcast network ABC. Its flagship program is the daily evening newscast '' ABC World News Tonight with David Muir''; other programs include morning news-talk show '' Good Morning America'', '' ...

. 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 DuPont de Nemours, Inc., commonly shortened to DuPont, is an American multinational chemical company first formed in 1802 by French-American chemist and industrialist Éleuthère Irénée du Pont de Nemours. The company played a major role in ...

. 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 as host."ABC NEWS CLOSE-UP: HOSTAGE! (TV)"
''The Paley Center for Media''. Presently Riisna, retired from ''

'', works with her husband

James L. Greenfield James Lloyd Greenfield (born 16 July 1924) served as United States Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs from 1962 to 1966 and was one of the editors of the ''New York Times'' who decided to publish the '' Pentagon Papers'' in 1971. Ea ...

who heads the Independent Journalism Foundation, which he created in 1990 for the study of journalism, and which has centers throughout Eastern Europe, Vietnam and Cambodia.

References

External links

Independent Journalism Foundation
{{DEFAULTSORT:Riisna, Ene 1938 births Living people American television producers American women television producers 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