About the Staff
Chris Guarino, Senior Producer
Chris is an award-winning news and documentary producer with more than 25 years experience in producing both breaking news and long-form news programming.
He directed the 2008 Peabody Award winning election year coverage of Washington Week with Gwen Ifill and National Journal on PBS and has been the Senior Producer of that broadcast for WETA since 2003 .
He has also produced numerous specials for PBS including the documentary series, Avoiding Armageddon, as well as the magazine series, Flashpoints USA with Gwen Ifill and Bryant Gumbel and the in-depth news series, Sesno Reports hosted by Frank Sesno.
Prior to producing for public television, Guarino spent 19-years at CNN, which included serving as executive producer of the network's political unit in the '90's, and was also responsible for such signature series as "Inside Politics" and "Crossfire." In addition, he covered each election cycle for nearly two decades in the 80s and 90s, including floor and podium producing at every political convention between 1984-2000.
Guarino headed up the team at CNN that was awarded the 1999 duPont-Columbia Journalism Award for coverage of the impeachment and trial of President Bill Clinton by correspondent Candy Crowley.
Guarino was also on the scene as a reporter and producer for CNN's coverage of such historic breaking news stories as the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989; the election of President Nelson Mandela of South Africa in 1994; and the election recount in Florida in 2000. During his career he has collaborated with and produced for some of the most distinguished names in the news business including: Gwen Ifill, Bernard Shaw, Judy Woodruff, Wolf Blitzer, Frank Sesno, Daniel Schorr, Robert Novak and Bryant Gumbel.
A graduate of Ohio University, Guarino lives in the Washington, D.C. area and is the father of two daughters.
Alla Lora, Producer
Alla is an Emmy and Peabody award-winning producer who joined Washington Week with Gwen Ifill and National Journal in 2006. She has extensive network news experience covering every major news event in the past two decades including the Oklahoma City bombing, the trial of Timothy McVeigh, the contested 2000 presidential election, the September 11 terrorist attacks, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
From 2000-2004, Lora was a senior producer with MSNBC/NBC in charge of developing live interview segments for more than 60-hours of regular programming and breaking news coverage. She was also part of the team that produced 24/7 coverage of the September 11 attacks and a series of town hall meetings that were honored with Emmy and National Headliners awards.
Lora began her career in local news working in various markets including Cleveland, Cincinnati, Baltimore, New Haven, Connecticut and Washington, DC as a producer, executive producer and assistant news director. She has developed and launched a number of original programs including an Emmy-award-winning special on teen drinking and driving.
Alla grew up in northeast Ohio and is a cum laude graduate of Baldwin Wallace College where she majored in mass communication and business administration.
Katherine Brewer, Associate Producer
Katherine joined Washington Week in September 2010. She has been a television and radio writer and producer for pieces on WYPR and WBFF in Baltimore and WNYC, WABC and MSNBC in New York. Most recently she was a producer for the Washington D.C. bureau of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation where she covered the 2008 presidential election from various US cities and spent a week in the Dominican Republic covering the 2010 Haitian earthquake.
Katherine is a New York native and graduated from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.
Jeff Bieber, VP of News & Public Affairs and Executive Producer of Washington Week
Jeff Bieber is a veteran executive producer of public television documentaries, specials, news and cultural programs at WETA, the public broadcasting station for the Greater Washington area. He is responsible for creating and managing major primetime series for PBS, including America at a Crossroads, a series of 20 documentaries about the Iraq War, Terrorism and America’s response to 9/11 and winner of 2008 EMMY and Columbia-DuPont awards; The Mysterious Human Heart, winner of a 2008 EMMY award; The Jewish Americans, a six-hour series that aired in January 2007; Washington Week with Gwen Ifill and National Journal, winner of a 2008 Peabody Award; and numerous other documentaries, specials and weekly series.
Bieber’s responsibilities include forging media partnerships, fundraising and managing public media campaigns. Bieber has also produced numerous documentaries, news specials, multi-camera music specials at the U.S. Capitol and The Kennedy Center and daily coverage of the WACO, Whitewater, Clarence Thomas Hearings as well as continuous news coverage of the attacks and aftermath of 9/11.
