About Robert Tutman
Robert Tutman is the founder of First Amendment Television LLC and a veteran journalist, Director of Photography, and network news cameraman with more than 57 years of professional production experience. Over the course of his career, he has worked on more than 10,000 productions spanning network news, documentaries, educational programming, civic journalism, and independent film.
Tutman spent approximately 25 years as a CBS Network News cameraman associated with WBBM/CBS Chicago, where his work placed him inside some of the most politically volatile and historically significant moments of the late twentieth century. He later served as Associate Professor at Columbia University’s Michelle Clark Minority Journalism Program in 1973.
As Director of Photography on The Providence Effect (2009), Tutman contributed to a documentary that received six international film festival awards, including honors from the Omaha Film Festival, the Seattle True Independent Film Festival, and the Lake County Film Festival. He has been based in Chicago’s Pilsen neighborhood for more than 45 years.
About FATV
First Amendment Television LLC creates independent film, television, and documentary programming rooted in truth, free expression, and professional craftsmanship. FATV exists to produce work that informs, challenges, and endures — while building an independent production infrastructure capable of training, employing, and empowering the next generation of filmmakers and journalists.
Robert Tutman founded First Amendment Television on a principle that has only grown more relevant: that the First Amendment is not a legal abstraction but a production philosophy. The right to speak, to document, to bear witness — these are not just constitutional rights. They are professional obligations. In an era when artificial intelligence can generate images of events that never happened, the commitment to documentary truth and verified civic narrative is not a legacy value. It is the most urgent value in the room.
One Philosophy. Two Divisions. One Commitment to Intellectual Honesty.
Journalism. Documentary. Feature Films
“Journalism is not content creation. Professional standards matter. The audience deserves the truth.”
— Robert Tutman, Founder, FATV