Hailed by The Washington Post for “his savant like ability to name every Best Picture winner in history,” you may recognize Jason Fraley from predicting the Oscars on NBC-4, The Tony Kornheiser Show and The Arch Campbell Podcast, but did you know that he grew up right here in Frederick County?
Raised in Libertytown, Maryland, Jason watched Arch Campbell’s movie reviews on NBC-4 and made home movies with his twin brother, including the “Home Alone” spoof “Boy By Himself.” As the first team captain for legendary football coach Rick Conner at Linganore High School, Jason was interviewed by Josh Smith of The Frederick News-Post, which led to an invitation to intern at his hometown newspaper as a sideline reporter.
He continued to cover sports for The Diamondback and WMUC Radio while receiving his B.A. in Journalism at the University of Maryland in College Park, but he enthusiastically switched to arts journalism after interning at USA Today and The Baltimore Sun, where he worked for Michael Sragow, the first regular film critic for Rolling Stone magazine. Jason next received his M.F.A. in Film & Electronic Media from American University, where he took copious notes on hundreds of classics to create the film appreciation website, The Film Spectrum, hailed by The Washington Post for its “spirited reviews with the ethos of a true film aficionado.” For this, he was invited back to teach summer courses at American University.
In 2008, Jason launched a stellar 16-year career at America’s top radio station, WTOP, starting as Morning Drive Writer, then becoming the weekly film critic in 2011 and full-time Entertainment Editor in 2014. Jason has won numerous awards from the Society of Professional Journalists and Associated Press Broadcasters Association, as well as a regional Edward R. Murrow Award for his arts coverage, ranging from the White House to the Kennedy Center to the Oscars. His list of celebrity interviews is endless, from red carpets with Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Eddie Murphy and Jerry Seinfeld to one-on-one chats with John Legend, Jennifer Hudson, Aretha Franklin, Carol Burnett, Bob Newhart and Jon Stewart, all featured on his successful podcast “Beyond the Fame,” going strong at nearly 1,000 episodes.
In his spare time, Jason has written nearly a dozen feature-length screenplays, including “Cinemagic,” which made the Top 10% of the Academy’s Nicholl Fellowships and currently ranks in the Top 1% on Coverfly. He has also directed several short films, including “Liberty Road,” which won a CINE Golden Eagle Award after being filmed at Liberty Road Seafood, where he once waited tables covered in Old Bay.
He now resides in Downtown Frederick with his wife, Ashley Marie, a dynamite “Best of Frederick” musician, and their adorable rescue pup, Liberty, who loves walking the campus of Hood College where Jason will be teaching “History of American Film” in the fall.
