Tue Oct 28, 2025 7:00 PM – 8:30 PM
Fordham University at Lincoln Center, 10023
We all recognize it when we see it, or hear it, or read it, but what truly makes content high-quality? The CMIL was a part of an event with the Children’s Media Association. CMIL Director Sherri Hope Culver moderated a discussion based on her report, The Quality Question. The event was presented by CMA and the Department of Communication & Media Studies at Fordham University and the National Association for Media Literacy Education. This was CMA’s first ever crowdsourced panel, featuring content creators exploring what defines and how to craft meaningful, high-quality content.
Panelists included creators:
Danny LaBrecque | Danny Joe’s Tree House
Danny Joe LaBrecque is creator and host of the streaming preschool series, Danny Joe’s Tree House, a show that works to create healthy social-emotional habits at an early age, fostering age-appropriate conversations about complex topics that can support long-term practices for families as they grow together. In addition to the traditional passive screen, he also brings regular interactive live-stream and in-person versions of the show into early childhood classrooms, libraries, and museums.
Chevez Sanchez | Better Together
Chevez Jedai Sanchez is a Puerto Rican filmmaker and animation studio owner from Brooklyn, NY. In 2019 Chevez established Cleos Studios LLC as an animation production house for New York Artists focused on making original content and children’s media. As a sole proprietor, Chevez bootstrapped his own company with bigger and bigger freelance jobs and gradually hired his artistic community. Starting with directing small commercials, he’s built up to show running an animated children’s series for Johns Hopkins. Chevez’s production team is naturally composed of people of color, many of whom share his Puerto Rican background. The studio’s next original picture “The Resilient Coquí” is currently in production and is set to premiere at the Los Angeles International Latino Film Festival in Summer of 2026.
Lynn Kestina Sessler| Dora’s Recipe for Adventure
Lynn Kestin Sessler is a Peabody, Webby and Parent’s Choice Award-winning Producer and Development Executive who creates animated series, digital, podcast and live action TV programming for PBS, Nickelodeon, Netflix, Sesame Street, and MTV Networks. A trailblazer in children’s media for over 25 years, Lynn is passionate about creating playful, meaningful, and empowering content, brands, and experiences for kids and their grown-ups. She’s been at the forefront of multiplatform storytelling and industry innovation, Lynn specializes in adapting books to TV series and movies and creating content on multiple platforms.
Gabe Pulliam | The Creature Cases
Gabe Pulliam is a writer based in New York City. He is the creator, head writer, and executive producer of the Annie-nominated Netflix series “The Creature Cases,” currently in production with Sony Pictures Television Kids. He served as head writer on the STEM-focused “Chico Bon Bon: Monkey with a Tool Belt,” which he co-developed, and as story editor of the international hit “Octonauts,” for which he won a Daytime Emmy Award. In addition to his work in children’s media, he is a faculty member at New York’s School of Visual Arts, where he teaches writing to undergraduate animation students.
The conversation was moderated by Sherri Hope Culver (author of the report The Quality Question: Why Children’s Media Must Aim High) with children’s media strategist, analyst, author, speaker, and connector David Kleeman as our respondent.
Sherri Hope Culver | Moderator
Sherri Hope Culver serves as Director of the Center for Media and Information Literacy at Temple University where she is a Professor of Instruction in Klein College of Media and Communication and directs the Certificate in Children’s Media. She served as vice-chair of the UNESCO-led Global Media and Information Literacy Alliance and regularly presents internationally on media literacy and children’s media topics. Sherri was a key advisor on the PBS Kids Guiding Framework on Media Literacy. She recently published “The Quality Question: Why Children’s Media Must Aim High”. Sherri produces and hosts the podcast Kids Talk Media. She was a Fulbright Global Scholar for 2022-2023 conducting research on children’s media and media literacy globally.
David Kleeman | Respondent
Strategist, analyst, author, speaker, connector, David has led the children’s media industry in developing sustainable, child-friendly practices for more than 35 years. He began this work as president of the American Center for Children and Media and is now Senior Vice President of Global Trends for Dubit, a strategy/researchconsultancy and games studio. As Playvangelist, LLC, David offers independent consulting and advising. When he began this work, “children’s media” meant television. Today, he is fascinated by, and passionate about, kids’ wide range of possibilities for entertainment, engagement, play and learning. David uses research, insights and experience to show that much may change, but children’s developmental path and needs remain constant. David is advisory board chair to the international children’s TV festival PRIX JEUNESSE, on the board of the Children’s Media Association and the Advisory Board of the Joan Ganz Cooney Center. He was a 2013 Senior Fellow of the Fred Rogers Center and 2014 “Pioneer” Award recipient from Kids @ Play Interactive. In 2023, he was in the inaugural class of Children’s and Family Emmys Silver Circle inductees, for 25+ years of service.