Spencer Wilking wearing a checkered shirt, indoors with a blurred bookshelf in the background.

Spencer Wilking is a multiple Emmy and Peabody Award winning producer, director and showrunner with over 15 years of television and filmmaking experience. Based in New Orleans and Cape Cod.

Starting out at HBO Real Sports and ABC News, Spencer began his career producing investigative reports and breaking news. With a passion for documentary filmmaking, he was soon producing and directing a variety of feature doc projects and television shows. Creating short and long form content for numerous networks, streamers and brands, he seeks to celebrate and explore the human condition with thought-provoking and dynamic narratives.

He has a proven track record of leading teams and developing projects from start to finish, whether it be a verite documentary series, docu-reality for cable, or a studio news program. Combining filmmaking and investigative journalism, Spencer cultivates projects where entertainment and deeper societal meaning are both held in equal measure. As a culture obsessive, Spencer is most interested in stories from the world of sports, politics and crime.

In 2024, Spencer was the creator, director and executive producer of ESPN’s “SLC Hoops: Drive to Win,” a four-part series focusing on the success and struggles of college basketball players in the Southland Conference.

Most recently, he served as Senior Producer for "American Prince: JFK Jr.,” a three-part series on JFK, Jr.'s adventurous and ultimately tragic life, as seen through the lens of his groundbreaking political magazine “George.”

Airing on MSNBC Films in early 2023, Spencer was the co-executive producer for “When Truth Isn't Truth: The Rudy Giuliani Story.” The four part series produced by TIME Studios explored Giuliani’s dramatic fall from grace, how little he changed in between and the forging of our nation’s “post-truth” era.

In 2021, Spencer was the co-executive producer for “College $ports, Inc.” a feature-length Vice documentary investigating the NCAA and the seismic rules shift allowing athletes to make NIL endorsement money. In 2017, he produced “World Beaters,” a "30 for 30" documentary film about the history of the Little League World Series, which the New York Times called: “A sweet little one-off documentary… the whole thing is very charming and warm.”

Spencer has made a special focus on producing retrospective documentaries with social themes that still carry resonance in shaping today’s America. He received a 2017 duPont Award as a producer on "Let It Fall: L.A. 1982-1992," an ABC documentary film about police brutality and the L.A. riots directed by Oscar-winner John Ridley.

As a director Spencer’s work has included “The Last Word,” a short form doc series for the History Channel marking the 75th Anniversary of Pearl Harbor. He interviewed 26 remaining veteran survivors on a range of issues from PTSD to Japanese internment camps. He also directed “Toxic Lake,” a digital documentary project for the Weather Channel about Florida’s Lake Okeechobee, Big Sugar and a toxic algae menacing the Sunshine State. It received the 2017 Society for Professional Journalists Award for Best Digital Feature.

Spencer graduated from Tulane University with a B.A. and M.A. in History, and has a M.S. from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. He’s married with two children and resides in the Irish Channel neighborhood of New Orleans.