[Infowarrior] - Chasing Terrorists (and TV Ratings)

[Richard Forno]

  Chasing Terrorists (and TV Ratings)
By BRIAN STELTER
http://nytimes.com/2009/07/14/arts/television/14want.html?pagewanted=print

A production company thinks it has found a dramatic new television  
format for the so-called age of terror: conducting international  
manhunts for suspected terrorists and war criminals, filming them and  
selling the finished product to television networks around the world.  
Its first bidder is NBC News.

In just under a week NBC is expected to introduce the series, “The  
Wanted,” which has already attracted criticism because of the  
collaboration between the journalists and the former government  
operatives they work with.

Soon the series may go worldwide: on Monday a distribution company,  
ShineReveille International, said it had acquired the series for  
foreign distribution.

The series has been criticized by some as an extension of “To Catch a  
Predator,” the “Dateline NBC” franchise that showed police officers  
and journalists working in concert to catch possible sex offenders  
when they tried to meet minors. Some have even pre-emptively labeled  
the series “To Catch a Terrorist.” Last winter the Department of  
Homeland Security warned that NBC’s pursuit of a Maryland college  
professor on genocide charges could hurt the ability of law  
enforcement officials to enact actual, as opposed to televised, justice.

But NBC and the producers have brushed aside those concerns. NBC has  
called “The Wanted” a “groundbreaking television event” that would  
show an elite team of investigators pursuing accused criminals living  
in the open and avoiding justice. An online promotion for the program  
suggests that it will have cinematic qualities, including sweeping  
shots from helicopters and a command center for the team. In a mostly  
low-rated season of summer programming, the ratings for “The Wanted”  
will be closely watched after it has its premiere on Monday at 10 p.m.  
Eastern time. A second episode is scheduled one week later; four more  
episodes have been filmed.

“The truth is the real weapon in this redefining news series that  
follows a Navy Seal, a Green Beret and a dedicated reporter as they  
hunt down war criminals and terrorists from around the world,” the  
production company, Echo Ops, says in its promotional materials.

The Green Beret and the member of the Seals are retired. They are cast  
members who conduct surveillance and hold mock intelligence briefings  
on the program, alongside Adam Ciralsky, an NBC News producer, and  
David Crane, a former chief prosecutor of an international war crimes  
tribunal in Sierra Leone. Mr. Crane praised the series for tackling  
cases of possible criminals who are “living normal lives under the  
protection of a domestic law and are trying to avoid justice.”

“We’re just here to seek justice for people that have been so  
victimized by international terrorists,” Mr. Crane said in a telephone  
interview on Monday.

It is the “we” — the cooperation between the former intelligence  
officers and NBC News — that has raised red flags among a number of  
veteran journalists, including some within NBC. They say they find it  
troubling that “The Wanted” blurs the boundaries between government  
agents and supposedly impartial journalists.

Lucy Dalglish, the executive director of the Reporters Committee for  
Freedom of the Press, asked simply, “Is this supposed to be journalism?”

Mr. Ciralsky, a former C.I.A. lawyer and “60 Minutes” producer, has  
worked for more than a year on the series. On the program he is  
repeatedly visible during the televised manhunts, saying on camera  
during one of the stakeouts, “I have eyes on him from the back.”

The documentary filmmaker Charlie Ebersol, son of Dick Ebersol, the  
chairman of NBC Sports, is an executive producer alongside Mr. Ciralsky.

Jane E. Kirtley, a professor of media ethics and law at the University  
of Minnesota, said she was stunned that NBC would use some of the same  
tactics that led to the harsh criticism of the “Predator” series. One  
of the accused sex offenders committed suicide as the police and  
cameras approached his home in 2006; NBC settled a lawsuit from the  
man’s family last year.

Ms. Kirtley said that when she first learned of the new program, she  
“thought it was something that The Onion was doing as satirical summer  
silliness,” referring to the satirical newspaper.

She said she worried that Mr. Ciralsky would be perceived not as a  
reporter but as a government representative. The series could “play  
into the hands of those who say that there is no such thing as  
independent journalism in the U.S., that everybody who’s working  
abroad is working in concert with the U.S. government,” she said.

Mr. Crane said he believed it was very appropriate for Mr. Ciralsky to  
work hand in hand with the former intelligence officers. “It’s a team  
effort,” he said.

By licensing the program from Echo Ops, NBC may be able to sidestep  
some of the legal and ethical questions that followed “To Catch a  
Predator.” An NBC News spokeswoman said that “The Wanted” followed the  
news division’s ethical guidelines to the letter.

The network declined requests to interview the executive producers of  
“The Wanted” on Monday. But Mr. Ciralsky told The Associated Press,  
“The people who’ve called it ‘To Catch a War Criminal,’ they’ve never  
seen the show.”

David Corvo, an executive producer at NBC News, said in a news release  
that “we hope this program sheds light on an overlooked story.”

NBC said the episode on Monday would follow Mullah Krekar, the founder  
of Ansar al-Islam, an organization that the United States government  
classified in 2003 as being a terrorist group “with close links to and  
support from Al Qaeda.” The network said viewers would be shown  
surveillance operations in the man’s neighborhood in Oslo.

The next week, the team moves to Germany to follow Mamoun Darkazanli,  
a man suspected of providing logistical and financial support to Al  
Qaeda.

Mr. Crane said the program highlighted “the worst of the worst.”

NBC has said that the Maryland professor may be featured in a  
forthcoming episode of “The Wanted.” The Department of Homeland  
Security had no comment on Monday about the series.

The plans for worldwide distribution of the series by ShineReveille  
added another wrinkle on Monday. Ben Silverman, co-chairman of NBC  
Entertainment, had owned the Reveille portion of the company until  
this year. Elisabeth Murdoch, a daughter of the News Corporation  
chairman Rupert Murdoch, is the chairwoman of the Shine Group,  
ShineReveille’s parent company.

“We’re always on the lookout for high-caliber, cutting-edge  
programming that plays so well across international markets,” the  
distributor’s president, Chris Grant, said in a statement. “This  
gripping series, which takes viewers to the front lines of the war on  
terror, fits the bill perfectly.”