"Coat Guy” Jeff Friedman Is Back to Work as “TV Guy”

Thu
01
Dec

"Coat Guy” Jeff Friedman Is Back to Work as “TV Guy”

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Long before he became the Coat Guy, Jeff Friedman of Livingston was a “TV Guy” – working as a station manager and executive producer for public television, and later teaching television production and management at Montclair State University. In recent years, he digitally converted and ran Montclair State’s high definition television production facility. Now, when he’s not hauling coats or giving out toiletries gift bags with his Livingston Philanthropies initiative, he continues to be a “TV Guy” on occasion. Friedman has been semi-retired since leaving his full-time position at Montclair State three years ago, but has kept his hand in things with various consulting and filming gigs. Now he’s had the opportunity to be a TV Guy again – this time with a lot of the same people he worked with for 20 and 30 years. During the summer, Friedman got a call from his old friend and long-time colleague, Sandra King. “Sandy is, unequivocally, the most brilliant  producer and writer I have ever worked with,” he says. “On top of that, she is a journalist with a capital J.” King was looking for help on Due Process, a television show the two had collaborated on for 12 years (and for which she has continued to produce, write, and host). Friedman was happy to jump back into the saddle. “We’ve always been a strong team,” he notes (the two have won multiple Emmy Awards together, for Due Process and a 9/11 special, America Together: Heroes. Friedman himself has been nominated for 60 Emmys, and has received 13.) Now we’re reunited – who knew?!” Due Process, currently a production of Rutgers School of Law in Newark and the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy, is an award-winning, critically acclaimed weekly series on law and justice issues. Topics run the gamut from criminal law, civil law, consumer law, and civil liberties law. For example, the episodes Friedman has worked on are “Marijuana: A Country Divided,” which will air December 10 on WENT and December 11 and 13 on NJTV; “Community Court: A Kinder, Gentler Way?,” to air December 17 on WNET, and December 18 and 20 on NJTV; “Rape Exonerations: The Number Grows,” to air January 7 on WNET and January 8 and 10 on NJTV; and “Civil Commitment,” which will air January 14 on WNET, and January 15 and 17 on NJTV. Friedman and King created the series together in 1996 at New Jersey ...

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