About Christina DeFranco

Christina DeFranco is an Emmy award-winning journalist whose career spans 30 years in broadcasting. She started as a “one-man band” at a small cable station in Cape Cod, Massachusetts – serving as reporter, photographer and editor. She then went on to work in television markets from upstate New York to Hartford, CT, covering everything from the existence of a brain cancer cluster at Pratt and Whitney – a national story she broke- to the contentious debate over gun rights in the wake of the Newtown mass shooting. Throughout her career, Ms. DeFranco has won six Emmys, a Telly, a Communicator Award, an Accolade, a New York Festival Award, Associated Press Honors, and multiple citations from Connecticut’s Society for Professional Journalists. For the past 10 years, she has produced and hosted multiple award-winning documentaries and series for CT Public- the state’s PBS affiliate, including Made in Connecticut, which won back to back Emmys in 2015 and 2016. She won her most recent Emmy in June 2019 for hosting the documentary When You See Something, Will You Say Something?

In 2007, Christina produced her first independent documentary Darkest Hours: The Crisis in Children’s Mental Health Care, an in-depth look at society’s most vulnerable medical patients: children with mental illness. This powerful documentary sheds light on how kids have been forced to cope with a fragmented system that hurts them and the families who love them. In 2008, Ms. DeFranco produced Aston’s Army: A Swim Team Legacy, the inspiring story of High School Swim Coach Ed Aston.

Ms. DeFranco served as reporter at WTNH-TV, ABC (New Haven, CT) from 1996-2001, where she reported live for the nightly news. Prior to that, she was a reporter and anchor for WTIC-TV, Fox (Hartford, CT). There she produced and hosted her first documentary Saving Connecticut Schools: A Private Lesson.

DeFranco is President of Danolas Productions, the video production company she founded in 2001. Along with producing documentaries, she also creates and producers customized videos for websites and events. Her most recent project showcased the Fund for Teachers. She holds a BA from Duke University and lives in Connecticut with her husband and two sons.