Jason Y. Lee is the founder of Jubilee Media, a digital studio focused on storytelling that encourages empathy and civic dialogue among politically diverse participants. He helped transform the Jubilee Project volunteer collective into a professional media company that produces widely viewed YouTube series examining contemporary social issues.

Founding Jubilee Project

Lee co-created the Jubilee Project in 2010 with friends who produced short films for humanitarian fundraising, beginning with a campaign supporting earthquake relief efforts in Haiti. The early projects demonstrated how participatory video storytelling could mobilize online audiences around civic causes, laying the groundwork for a dedicated production team and community of volunteers.

Transition to Jubilee Media

During the mid-2010s Lee guided the organization from volunteer activism to a structured media company. The 2017 rebrand to Jubilee Media marked a shift toward serialized programming optimized for digital distribution, including “Spectrum” and “Middle Ground” formats that place political and cultural disagreements at the center of conversations. Lee expanded the team with producers, researchers, and moderators trained to facilitate sensitive discussions on camera.

Approach to Political Dialogue

Lee’s leadership emphasizes formats that prioritize listening exercises, structured prompts, and reflective interviews. Episodes frequently feature voters, organizers, and subject-matter experts discussing policy tradeoffs, with Lee overseeing editorial standards that keep conversations respectful while surfacing real disagreements. He also developed application pipelines and participant briefings that prepare guests to engage constructively on divisive topics.

Influence on Digital Civic Media

By focusing on empathy-driven conversations rather than debates intended to produce winners and losers, Lee has helped popularize a genre of digital programming that seeks to reduce polarization through storytelling. Jubilee’s large subscriber base and syndication across short-form platforms demonstrate sustained audience demand for content that pairs political differences with shared lived experiences.