multi-award winning newsroom leader
Samantha M. Wender has been creating award-winning and nominated stories for more than two decades. She’s a multi-Emmy Award winner that has traveled to every state in the U.S. and more than one-hundred countries.
Samantha most recently left CBS News as an Executive Producer of the development, production and execution of multi-part live and taped series as well as studio and field-based special projects for CBS News Digital & Streaming. She also produced for the CBS Evening News franchise “Eye on America.”
She’s now Head of Video at Carry-on Media, a full-service content agency that produces documentary-style brand storytelling.
While a Senior Producer at Vice News, she oversaw and produced smart, in-depth and contextual storytelling that married people and their voices to global headlines and stories for Vice News Tonight and VICE on Showtime.
At NBC News, she wrote and produced feature stories for TODAY, TODAY Food and Sunday Today with Willie Geist. She also produced breaking news and pitched, developed and booked much of her work, spearheading multi-platform series and sponsored content.
From 2005-2012, at ABC’s News Magazines (Primetime & 20/20), Samantha produced, field-produced, and supported major newsmaker interviews and process hours, including Diane Sawyer’s "Hidden America" series.
She spent the better part of two years following the lives of five homeless teens, eight months on the Lakota Sioux Pine Ridge Reservation and several months with the Amish, people addicted to heroin, and foster youth, chronicling the stories of those living in poverty, out of the mainstream, and on the fringes of society.
In 2012, Samantha left ABC News to produce a 90-minute feature documentary for MTV while simultaneously producing for their "True Life" series at Gigantic! Productions. She also spent time helping to develop series, pilots and special pitches for a variety of networks and outlets including Yahoo! where she produced sponsored digital video content.
In June 2025, the independently produced documentary she co-wrote, produced, and executive produced, Just Kids, world premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival and is now streaming on Prime Video and Apple TV.
Samantha holds a Bachelor of Arts in political science and philosophy from Emory University, and is expected to graduate from Columbia University in May 2027 with a Master of Science in Strategic Communications.
To learn more about Samantha's branded work, visit Carry-on Media.
