Journalism Initially, Yago worked primarily as a writer for the MTV News department. From 2002-2003, Yago wrote and produced the MTV News magazine
The Wrap on
MTV2. As his time at MTV progressed, Yago switched gears and began focusing on politics, rather than music, on MTV News. Yago has worked on award-winning documentaries on
sexual health, the
9/11 attacks, fighting in
Afghanistan,
hate crimes, the 2000 and
2004 elections, and the
war in Iraq. These awards include: 2003 Peabody Award Winner for his programming on MTV's "Fight For Your Rights: Protect Yourself" sexual health campaign, a 2004 Emmy for MTV's Choose or Lose Programming, 2006 Emmy nomination for web coverage of the 2005 earthquake in Kashmir. In 2005 Yago covered the aftermath of
Hurricane Katrina in
New Orleans and the devastating
Kashmir earthquake in
Pakistan and
India. Towards the end of his career at MTV, Yago devoted most of his time to covering issues surrounding the Iraq War and its effect on young veterans. In 2004 he told Charlie Rose he thought the war was the top issue for young people in America. His 2006 MTV Special "Iraq Uploaded" unintentionally helped change Pentagon policy denying wartime access to social networking sites as MTV is the only non-filesharing or social networking site mentioned in the subsequent ban. Yago also discussed Iraq Uploaded with Stephen Colbert in August 2005. After years as a full-time member of MTV News, Yago left the network in January 2007 writing: "We are lucky to have an audience that treats us as peers. Though it might be seductive to play the short game with their trust in return for stacked favors and immediate gains, please keep fighting for them and thinking of them in the fine work that you all do. They deserve as much." Throughout his career Yago has interviewed many politicians, musicians, and other celebrities including former president
George W. Bush, former president
Bill Clinton, former senator
John Kerry, former secretary of state
Colin Powell, former vice president
Al Gore, and Senator
John McCain, as well as other prominent figures, including former ambassador
L. Paul Bremer III and
Bill Gates. Yago's writing has appeared in
Spin,
Rolling Stone, and
VICE magazines. Several of Yago's pieces of writing have later become the basis for documentary material. For example, his 2003 article "No War For Heavy Metal" became the basis for Vice Film's 2007 documentary "Heavy Metal in Baghdad". Also, Yago's piece for PRI's "This American Life" about a teenaged propagandist for Saddam Hussein became the basis for their "Talk To An Iraqi" segment on the second season of "This American Life" on Showtime.
Writer In 2006 Focus Features acquired his script "Underdog" about veterans returning home from war. It has no set production or release date. Yago also completed a short series with IFC.
The IFC Media Project is "a user's guide to how the news gets made" promising to expose the tactics used by media giants to "sell" the news. Yago returned as host of the second season of The IFC Media Project, in May 2009. Yago co-wrote the third episode of
The Newsroom with
Aaron Sorkin, entitled "The 112th Congress." He also worked on
Narcos,
Quantico and the finale of series one of
The Mosquito Coast. ==References==