Sophia Cranshaw, a Peabody Award and Emmy Award-winning producer of social-issues campaigns for Viacom’s MTV, died last Monday from breast cancer. She was 45 years old.
Since 2008, Cranshaw worked as vice president of promotion for MTV’s MTVu, a network devoted specifically to programming for college students. As part of her job, she worked on many of the network’s public-service efforts to generate more attention to causes including mental illness and genocide. The campaigns have been a cornerstone of MTV programming for decade and serve as way for the network to connect more directly to younger generations through the social causes they embrace.
Cranshaw won a Peabody in 2007 for her work related to a campaign explaining the dangers of depression among college students. Her efforts included perspectives from musicians such as Mary J. Blige and Pete Wentz and utilized the slogan “The pain is real – don’t ignore the signs.”
She jointed MTVu in 2004, and also worked on campaigns that helped illustrate the dangers of genocide in Darfur and self-injury.
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Cranshaw was born in Memphis, TN on October 29 1970. She grew up in East Texas and received a liberal arts degree in radio, television and film from the University of North Texas.
She is survived by her parents, John and Nonah Cranshaw, as well as a sister, Pia Mitchell.
