The Open Mind Celebrates 70 Years with 'Mayors of the World'

Reporting from across the globe, the longest-running PBS series finds democratic resilience and policy innovation in City Hall.

NY, UNITED STATES, October 23, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ -- On a journey across three continents, from Athens, the birthplace of democracy, and the German cities of Cologne and Düsseldorf to Lisbon, Toronto, and Santiago to Atlanta, Miami, Detroit, Midland, Texas, and New York City, The Open Mind hosted by Alexander Heffner explores the civic and cultural lives of cities and the mayors who lead them. Watch here.

"Mayors of the World" is an in-depth travelogue documentary series focused on City Hall as the heartbeat of civil society. The featured mayors represent an extraordinary cross-section of the human experience and ideological spectrum, from the youngest New York City mayor in a century and a survivor of an assassination attempt to the first Big City mayor to launch a vacancy tax and another who built emergency housing from shipment containers to an engineering professor-turned-politican and a cop who grew up amid a coup.

“After President Trump’s re-election and downsizing of the State Department and traditional diplomacy, journalism seemed like an urgent bridge to the world,” said host and executive producer Alexander Heffner. “The Open Mind continues to be that rare home for intellectually honest exchange where prescience brings unsung ideas to public awareness before mainstream coverage, from civil rights and authoritarian resurgence to scientific advances and pandemic preparedness to justice reform and counterproliferation.”

"Mayors of the World" has been recognized in The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Economist, The Guardian, Rolling Stone, Hollywood Reporter, TIME, and PEOPLE Magazine as well as on CNN, DW, and NPR. The Guardian writes: "The Open Mind is all about respectful conversation in a cacophonous world. But its host still knows how to land a punch." When asked why the local focus, Heffner told The New York Times, “There’s a democratic and civic accountability that's almost unavoidable if you're the mayor.” With continued support, The Open Mind aspires to navigate more continents – Africa, Asia, and Australia – to report on mayors and their constituents.

This year The Open Mind also presented a special at the Museum of Memory and Human Rights in Santiago with two-time Chile president and UN leader Michelle Bachelet who overcame the torture of her father to help the country achieve democracy. "That episode felt genuinely validating," one viewer commented. "Historical memory museums are powerful anti-fascist instruments that center the memory of victims and create opportunity for difficult reflection. This was the best episode in The Open Mind’s history and really one of the most meaningful interviews I've ever seen."

Heffner's focus on Mayors follows two years of The Open Mind’s chronicles of the most influential figures in American political life over meals and activities in their home states, including U.S. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD), Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Senator Mark Kelly (D-AZ), Senator Raphael Warnock (D-GA), Governor Wes Moore (D-MD), Governor Spencer Cox (R-UT), Governor Mark Gordon (R-WY), and Governor Maura Healey (D-MA). This series, “Breaking Bread with Alexander," was distributed on Bloomberg TV and Originals as well as on The Open Mind.

Over the course of its 70th year, The Open Mind is sharing across social media some of its landmark episodes, as well as producing new conversations with groundbreaking authors in science. Commemorative anniversary episodes with MS NOW's Lawrence O'Donnell, PBS's Judy Woodruff, and Elijah Wiesel, grandson of the most frequent Open Mind guest, Holocaust survivor and Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel, are available to stream.

Alexander Heffner is host of The Open Mind and creator of Mayors of the World and Breaking Bread with Alexander. His interviews and documentaries have appeared on PBS and Bloomberg TV. He is coauthor of the bestselling A Documentary History of the United States and has covered culture, politics, and civic life since 2008. He is recipient of University of Denver’s Anvil of Freedom Award, Franklin Pierce University’s Fitzwater Medallion for Leadership in Public Communication, University of North Dakota’s Journalist-in-Residency, Yale University’s Poynter Fellowship in Journalism, and Johns Hopkins University’s Agora Institute Fellowship. He has lectured at the Planet Word Museum, Alabama Humanities Alliance, Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library & Museum, FDR Presidential Library & Museum, Institute for Democratic Engagement and Accountability at The Ohio State University, American University in Cairo, Center for Information and Bubble Studies at University of Copenhagen, Institute on Constitutional Democracy at University of Missouri, Civil Discourse Lab at the University of New Hampshire, and Catt Center for Women and Politics at Iowa State, among other institutions of learning.

The Open Mind is an award-winning public affairs series and the longest running in U.S. public media history. Considered precocious because of the ideas that it illuminates and thinkers it discovers, the program is a thoughtful excursion into the world of ideas across politics, media, science, technology, the arts, and all realms of civic life. Founded in 1956, The Open Mind series was the platform of Martin Luther King Jr.'s first-ever TV appearance and introduced him, Malcolm X, and other civil rights leaders to the American people. In 2016 The Washington Post called the series "[a] radical approach to talk in a troubled time." Its aim is to elicit meaningful insights into the challenges society faces in contemporary areas of public concern, while intellectually stimulating viewers, inspiring in them nuanced understanding, and encouraging active participation in American democracy. Notable episodes have featured Elie Wiesel, Milton Friedman, Gloria Steinem, Ruth Westheimer, John Hope Franklin, Derrick Bell, Robert Redford, Stephen Breyer, Bill Frist, Bernie Sanders, Pete Buttigieg, Maria Ressa, Bryan Stevenson, Salman Rushdie, Annette Gordon-Reed, and Kathleen Hall Jamieson.

Alexander Heffner
The Open Mind
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Mayors of the World: New York City