Atlas was a rock critic and film critic in the 1970s, serving as the West Coast correspondent of Melody Maker in the UK. She wrote for KRLA Beat, the Los Angeles Free Press and several other publications. She moved to television, working for NBC News in the 1980s, rising to senior producer on the Today show. She co-founded VU Productions with Pat Mitchell in 1990, writing and producing documentaries. Turner Broadcasting System hired her as an executive, after which she was an executive producer for CNN, then vice president at PBS in the 2000s.
In 2019, Atlas made Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools, airing on PBS.
Atlas first published as a journalist. She wrote an article about hippies in the KRLA Beat in August 1967.[5] She praised Harry Nilsson in early 1968.[6] For TeenSet magazine in 1968 she interviewed Jimi Hendrix at his "rented house in Benedict Canyon," recognized by Atlas as the house where the Beatles rested between concert legs in 1965.[7] She wrote reviews of the Doors in 1968 and Steppenwolf in 1969 for Hullabaloo, an early name for Circus rock magazine. She published frequently in Melody Maker in the UK – she was their West Coast correspondent[8] – including a piece based on a lengthy, relaxed interview with neighbor Joni Mitchell at her Laurel Canyon home in early 1970.[9] Atlas described her own Laurel Canyon house as small, with an inoperative fireplace, in an area recently plagued by smog.[10]
In 1989 through Dutton, Atlas published a fiction novel, Palace of Light, with characters placed within union politics in the early years of Hollywood. In 1994, she wrote A Century of Women, published through TBS Books as a companion to the Turner Broadcasting System television series of the same name.[17]
Television
Atlas first worked in the television industry as a research assistant to Rona Barrett on Good Morning America in 1976. She was hired by NBC News,[18] rising to spend five years as senior producer on the Today show. In October 1990,[19] Atlas co-founded VU Productions with Pat Mitchell, to create non-fiction content for Gary David Goldberg's Ubu Productions.[1] In 1991 for VU Productions, Atlas co-wrote with Mitchell the screenplay for Danger: Kids at Work, a TV movie starring Amy Irving. Under VU Productions, Atlas and Mitchell produced A Century of Women in 1994 for Turner Broadcasting System (TBS), a six-hour miniseries documentary broadcast in two episodes, narrated by Jane Fonda.[20][21]A Century of Women was nominated for an Emmy Award in 1995.[22] In 1996, TBS tapped Atlas to manage the production of Survivors of the Holocaust, with executive producer Steven Spielberg joining Mitchell. The documentary won two Emmy Awards, the first for "Outstanding Informational Special", given to the filmmakers including Atlas, Mitchell, Spielberg and director Allan Holzman, and the second for "Outstanding Individual Achievement – Informational Programming" given to Holzman for his editing of the film. It also won a Peabody Award and a CableACE Award, the latter presented to the filmmakers at the 18th CableACE Awards in 1996. Atlas supervised an independent documentary, Dying to Tell the Story (1998), about photojournalist Dan Eldon who was killed at 22 in Somalia.[2]
After TBS, Atlas worked for CNN, rising to the position of vice president and supervising producer. She helped launch CNN NewsStand, a news magazine, and was executive producer.[23] With CNN, she produced the documentary Soldiers of Peace: A Children's Crusade (1999), describing children in Colombia working toward peace. Starting in June 2000 at PBS, Atlas was senior vice president overseeing content for six years under president Mitchell, a role she shared with John Wilson: Atlas was based on the West Coast while Wilson was in Florida.[1][24] In June 2006, Atlas left PBS when they closed operations in Los Angeles.[25]
Atlas collaborated with Tavis Smiley on a series of documentaries for PBS. Atlas was involved with seven broadcasts including: "A Call to Conscience" (2010), "Too Important to Fail" (2011), "Education Under Arrest" (2013), and "Getting Ahead" (2016). One of the series was about Venezuelan conductor Gustavo Dudamel.[26]
Atlas wrote and directed Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools, based on the 2016 book of the same name written by Monique W. Morris. The documentary was broadcast in 2019 by PBS, telling about African American girls disproportionately sent to the juvenile justice system.[27]
Awards and recognition
Atlas won a Peabody Award,[28] a CableACE Award and an Emmy Award for the TBS movie Survivors of the Holocaust (1996). She was nominated for two more Emmys: in 1995 for A Century of Women, and in 1999 for Dying to Tell the Story.[29]
Filmography
2019: Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools[27]
