Meet Clarence Jones - Author, Crisis Manager, On-Camera Coach

He knows what he's talking about. And so does his wife -- Ellen Jaffe Jones, who joined him as his partner in the business in November, 2003. She also had a remarkable career in broadcast journalism.

Nobody in America can match Clarence's experience and awards as one of nation's most honored and respected reporters in both newspapers and television; and his career (since 1984) as a media consultant, crisis manager, and on-camera coach.

He is the only reporter for a local TV station to ever win three duPont-Columbia Awards (broadcasting's equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize).

He was the first reporter in America to use a computer (in 1968) to crunch the numbers for a series of Miami Herald stories about the operation of the criminal courts there.

He began working full-time as a reporter for the Florida Times-Union while he was earning his journalism degree at the University of Florida.

In 1963, as one of the nation's most promising young journalists, he was granted a Nieman Fellowship at Harvard University.

After Harvard, he went to the Miami Herald and became one of that paper's lead investigative reporters. He was working as Washington correspondent for the Herald when -- in 1970 -- he took one of television's most unusual assignments.

With an assumed name and a shell corporation as his cover, he moved to Louisville, Kentucky, to work secretly for WHAS-TV. He was undercover for eight months, daily carrying hidden cameras and microphones into bookmaking joints to document their operations.

He conducted extensive videotaped surveillance of gamblers' daily routines and contacts with law enforcement officers. In one recording made secretly, a high-ranking police official carefully explained the payoff system to a man who was asking how to open an illegal after-hours bar with high-stakes gambling tables.

Jones came out from under cover with two, one-hour documentaries showing the powerful influence of illegal gambling in the community. His work there gained immediate national attention.

In 1972, Jones returned to Miami as investigative reporter for WPLG-TV, specializing in organized crime and official corruption. In addition to the three duPont-Columbia Awards, his work for WPLG-TV earned four Emmys and the Robert F. Kennedy Award for reporting on the problems of the disadvantaged.

While he was reporting for WPLG-TV, he also taught for five years as an adjunct professor at the University of Miami.

In 1984, he published the first version of Winning with the News Media, originally titled How to Speak TV - A Self-Defense Manual When You're the News.

It quickly caught on, and he left reporting to form his consulting firm. He works full-time with corporate and government executives all over America, teaching them media strategy and on-camera skills.

Now in its Eighth Edition (October, 2004) Jones' book is used as a textbook in his seminars and by many corporations, government agencies and national associations who do their own media training.

How to get your copy of Winning with the News Media

In late 2006, Clarence published an e-book, Build Your Next PC, about building his own computer.