Career
He was formerly a correspondent for Vanguard, Current television"s investigative documentary series. His work has also been featured on American Broadcasting Company’s Nightline, Good Morning America, Cable News Network, Public Broadcasting Service, Canadian Broadcasting Company, and the Sundance Channel. Christof began his production career while still an undergraduate at Connecticut College, where he produced his first documentary, "Left Behind," about Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome orphans in Kenya.
Christof joined Current television in 2005 as one of the network’s first employees.
The following year, he was the first American television journalist to report from Mogadishu, Somalia since the infamous Black Hawk Down incident in 1993. His resulting story, Mogadishu Madness, about the rise and fall of the Islamic Court Union, was nominated for an Emmy.
He has since trekked in the jungles of the Democratic Republic of Congo to cover the exploitation of child gold miners, made the treacherous journey through the desert to cross the Mexico/United States border with migrants trying to reach American soil, and camped on the southern shores of Yemen, where he discovered the bodies of more than two-dozen refugees who drowned attempting to escape the violence in Somalia. The following year, Christof was nominated for his third Emmy for “Lost in Democracy,” a documentary about the first democratic elections held in the tiny Himalayan Kingdom of Bhutan.
In 2012, "Sex, Lies, and Cigarettes," a documentary centered around Aldi, "the Indonesian smoking baby," went viral after exposing Philip Morris"s marketing practices in the developing world.
On June 17, 2013 it was announced that Putzel will be a correspondent for the upcoming news program America Tonight which will air on First Rate (at Lloyd's) Jazeera America at 9:00 pm eastern time.