Michael Kirk is a documentary filmmaker and partial creator of the PBS show Frontline, where he worked as senior producer until 1987. Kirk founded and currently owns the production company, the Kirk Documentary Group, in Brookline, Massachusetts, which has produced dozens of award-winning documentaries, both for Frontline and through his company, that focus on political, social and cultural issues. Kirk has produced more than 200 national television programs since 1984. He is a former Nieman Fellow in Journalism at Harvard University.

Early life and education

Kirk was born in Denver and later moved to Boise, Idaho, where he grew up. He attended Bishop Kelly High School. He graduated from the University of Idaho in 1971 with a degree in journalism.

Career

A key contributor to PBS's Frontline since its inception, Kirk joined Frontline as senior producer for its 1983 national debut on PBS. In 1987, he left Frontline to produce films through his own independent company, the Kirk Documentary Group, located in Brookline, Massachusetts. Some of his award-winning documentaries include Money, Power and Wall Street, League of Denial: The NFL's Concussion Crisis, United States of Secrets, Gunned Down: The Power of the NRA, The Choice 2016, Trump's Takeover, and Putin's Revenge. He produced Inside the Meltdown, about the 2008 financial crisis; Bush's War, about the Iraq War under George W. Bush; and The Way the Music Died, about the dire straits of the record industry. Kirk has made upwards of 20 films on the Obama and Trump presidencies, including The Choice 2020: Trump vs. Biden, Supreme Revenge, Zero Tolerance, Trump's Takeover, Divided States of America, The Choice 2016, United States of Secrets, Putin's Revenge, The Choice 2012, The Warning and many others. By 2001, Kirk had produced more than 200 national television programs.

Recognition and awards

Kirk was inducted into the University of Idaho Alumni Hall of Fame in 2000 and given an honorary degree in 2013. He is a former Nieman Fellow in Journalism at Harvard University. Between 1984 and 2020, Kirk received over 15 Emmy Awards and 12 Writers Guild of America Awards. In 2012, he won a George Polk Award for the film, Money, Power and Wall Street, and the same award in 2013 for League of Denial: The NFL's concussion Crisis,. Both films also won two Peabody Awards. Kirk's 2019 film Putin's Revenge won a Gold Baton from the duPont-Columbia Awards with Frontline, PBS for that year. Kirk and Mike Wiser then won a Writers Guild Award in the Documentary Scripts – Current Events category, for Trump's Takeover, and consecutive Emmy wins in 2015, 2016, and 2017 for United States of Secrets, Gunned Down: The Power of the NRA, and The Choice 2016. In a retrospective on Kirk's body of work, Philip Kennicott described Kirk's documentary style in The Washington Post as "rigorous, even obsessive about getting the chronology straight" and "if newspapers do the rough draft of history, Kirk does a very smooth and fascinating second draft." In The Los Angeles Times, television critic Robert Lloyd called Kirk's multi-award-winning film United States of Secrets "nuanced" and "compelling", while Variety Sonia Saraiya wrote that his four-hour mini-series Divided States of America "may well be the most important piece of journalism about this tumultuous era of identity politics and populist backlash."

Filmography