WITH A CAREER SPANNING GOVERNMENT, MEDIA AND FILM, BLAKE ZEFF IS KNOWN FOR PATH-BREAKING CONTENT WITH A CONSCIENCE.
His work has confronted issues like America's student loan crisis, the NYPD's stop-and-frisk practice, homelessness, public corruption, and poverty.
Zeff is the director and producer of the critically acclaimed feature documentary LOAN WOLVES, probing the origins and effects of the student debt crisis in America. Currently airing on Peacock & MSNBC, the project takes viewers on a rollicking, cross-country adventure as Zeff investigates which politician quietly snuck through an obscure law that set the crisis in motion, and ultimately unmasks and confronts the unimaginable culprit.
The former politics editor of Salon , he's also written for some of the nation's best-known publications including Vice, GQ, Politico and BuzzFeed, with his writing on New York politics for Capital New York resulting in several exclusive reports and influential columns, leading him to be called "Mr. New York politics.” As editor-in-chief of CAFE, Zeff created and hosted a ground-breaking investigative mini-documentary spotlighting a water poisoning scandal in Hoosick Falls, NY, as well as the subsequent cover-up by the state government.
Previously, he had a front-row seat to the highest levels of U.S. government and campaigns for more than a decade as an expert in policy and strategic communications. He led large teams as a senior aide on Capitol Hill in the U.S. Senate for three years for Sen. Chuck Schumer, and a senior policy & communications adviser in the New York Attorney General Office. He has also helped guide two presidential campaigns (including as a key spokesman for Barack Obama's 2008 campaign), and numerous non-profit organizations. For his work in strategic communications for campaigns, he was hailed in a profile by the New York Daily News as a "secret election weapon."
A widely sought after speaker, Blake has presented worldwide on film, politics and media to colleges, cultural institutions and policymakers (including the Parliaments of Canada and Finland). He is a graduate of Brown University.