Jonathan Miller’s work as a reporter, writer, editor, radio and television producer, podcaster, communications specialist, human rights advocate, and media project leader has taken him to more than 20 countries in Asia, Latin America, Africa, Europe, and the Pacific. He joined Homelands Productions in 2001 and has been executive director since 2006.
Jonathan’s features, news reports, commentaries, and documentaries have been broadcast on NPR, Marketplace, The World, BBC, CBC, PBS NewsHour, and many other radio, television, and podcast outlets. As a print journalist, he has written for the New Yorker, Condé Nast Traveler, Parents, Far Eastern Economic Review, Christian Science Monitor, and dozens of other publications. He has won several awards for his writing and radio projects.
Jonathan is founder and co-director of Story House Ithaca, a local organization devoted to building community through storytelling. He also serves on the board of Ithaca City of Asylum, a nonprofit that offers refuge to persecuted writers and artists. He currently coordinates ONWARDS, a national initiative by civil society groups to help displaced writers, artists, rights defenders, and scholars find employment and stability in the United States.
From 2019 to 2020, Jonathan was senior producer of the Wondery podcast “The Next Big Idea.” From 2016 to 2018 he was associate director of the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies at Cornell University. Prior to that, he was executive producer of Homelands’ “Food for 9 Billion,” “WORKING,” and “Worlds of Difference” projects, and editorial director of “Think Global,” the Public Radio Collaboration involving 30 national shows.
An active member of the Association of Independents in Radio, he has been a juror for the Third Coast International Audio Festival, Podcast Academy, and One World Media awards; served on the advisory board of World Vision Report; worked as a consultant, producer, and editor on Interfaith Voices’ award-winning “God and Government” series; and edited the documentary series “Against the Odds” by author and columnist Ellis Cose.
He spent 13 years living in the Philippines and Peru prior to moving to Ithaca, New York, in 2001. He has also lived in Kenya and France. He has taught, led workshops, and worked as a consulting writer and editor for international development institutions and NGOs in Asia, Latin America, and Africa.
Before becoming a journalist, Jonathan worked as a farmhand, forest ranger, firefighter, construction worker, bicycle messenger, maintenance man, cafeteria worker, fruit picker, and day laborer. After completing a degree in English Literature at Swarthmore College, he served as a VISTA volunteer in Seattle, where he helped establish a child care center for the children of families living in emergency shelters.