PBS FRONTLINE’s four-hour special chronicling the history of the 2008 financial crisis, Money, Power and Wall Street, took home last night’s News and Documentary Emmy Award for Outstanding Business and Economic Reporting – Long Form. Rain Media shared the award with the Kirk Documentary Group. Congratulations to all the winners, including FRONTLINE founder and Executive Producer David Fanning, who won the prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award.
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Egypt in Crisis to Air Tuesday, September 17 at 10 p.m. on PBS
Less than three years after the popular uprising that led to President Hosni Mubarak’s ouster, and just one year after Egypt’s first free and fair elections, the democratically elected government has been overthrown and the Egyptian military is running the state.
And the Muslim Brotherhood—the secretive, long-outlawed Islamist group that came out of the shadows to win the presidency in June 2012—is once again being driven underground, its members killed and arrested in an army-led campaign to wipe it off the map.
Were the Brothers ever really in charge? Or was the Egyptian “deep state”—embedded remnants of Mubarak’s police force, Supreme Court and, most of all, military—in control all along?
In Egypt in Crisis, airing Tuesday, Sept. 17, at 10 p.m. on PBS (check local listings), FRONTLINE and GlobalPost’s Charles M. Sennott go inside the Egyptian revolution, tracing how what began as a youth movement to topple a dictator evolved into an opportunity for the Muslim Brotherhood to seemingly find the political foothold it had sought for decades—and then why it all fell apart.
“We’ve gone from the hope and high expectations of the 2011 revolution to the first free and fair presidential election in Egypt’s history to a return to military rule and a country more deeply divided than ever—all in less than three years,” says Sennott, a veteran Middle East correspondent (The Brothers). “This FRONTLINE documentary takes you deep inside these turbulent ups and downs.”
When Sennott was in Egypt reporting for FRONTLINE’s The Brothers in January of 2011, the Muslim Brotherhood had aligned itself with secular youth activists and was essentially holding the revolution’s infrastructure together.
“The young activists had no real leader,” Sennott says. “The Brothers were much more organized, so they stepped in, and they were the ones running the security checkpoints, serving hot tea, distributing blankets and running an emergency health clinic.”
But, as FRONTLINE reveals, the Brotherhood soon turned on its former allies, aligning itself instead with the Egyptian army and tolerating violent repression. Under the short-lived presidency of Mohammed Morsi, the military tortured high-ranking members of the opposition, subjected women to public “virginity tests” and conducted mass arrests of revolutionaries.
“We wanted our first elected president, who himself had been subjected to torture, who himself has come from a clandestine organization that was the prime target of police brutality, to stand up against police brutality,” Khaled Fahmy, a historian at the American University in Cairo, tells FRONTLINE. “Nothing happens. Not a single police officer was put on trial. Not a single investigation was launched.”
In Egypt in Crisis, FRONTLINE goes behind the scenes to find out how Morsi’s rule became increasingly unpopular, and explores the days and decisions leading up to his ouster at the hands of the military and his arrest on charges of inciting murder.
With Egypt’s hopes for democracy in tatters, and the military-led government violently cracking down on the Brothers, what will happen next?
Rain Media Earns Four News & Documentary Emmy Nominations
Rain Media earned four News & Documentary Emmy nominations yesterday for its work for PBS FRONTLINE in 2012.
The Regime Responds was nominated for Outstanding Continuing Coverage of a News Story in a News Magazine.
Six Billion Dollar Bet and Cell Tower Deaths, a FRONTLINE-ProPublica collaboration, were both nominated for Outstanding Business and Economic Reporting in a News Magazine.
And the four-hour series Money, Power & Wall Street was nominated for Outstanding Business and Economic Reporting — Long Form. Rain Media shares this nomination with the Kirk Documentary Group.
Watch “The Spill” on PBS Frontline
Over the past decade, BP vaulted from an energy “also-ran” to one of the biggest companies in the world, gobbling up competitors in a series of mergers that delivered handsome profits for shareholders. But an investigation by FRONTLINE and the nonprofit newsroom ProPublica shows that BP’s leadership failed to create a culture of safety in the massive new company. As BP took increasingly big risks to find oil and extract it, the company left behind a trail of mounting problems: deadly accidents, disastrous spills, countless safety violations. Each time, BP acknowledged the wider flaws in its culture and promised to do better. The FRONTLINE/ProPublica investigation shows that the rhetoric was empty. From the refineries to the oil fields to the Gulf of Mexico, BP workers understood that profits came first.
Rain Media Earns Four News & Documentary Emmy Nominations
Rain Media earned four News & Documentary Emmy nominations yesterday for its work for PBS FRONTLINE in 2012.
The Regime Responds was nominated for Outstanding Continuing Coverage of a News Story in a News Magazine.
Six Billion Dollar Bet and Cell Tower Deaths, a FRONTLINE-ProPublica collaboration, were both nominated for Outstanding Business and Economic Reporting in a News Magazine.
And the four-hour series Money, Power & Wall Street was nominated for Outstanding Business and Economic Reporting — Long Form. Rain Media shares this nomination with the Kirk Documentary Group.
Congratulations to all the nominees, along with PBS FRONTLINE executive producer David Fanning, who will be honored as the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Emmy when the winners are announced this fall. You can watch all of the films for free on the PBS FRONTLINE website.
FRONTLINE to re-air two Rain Media films
PBS FRONTLINE plans to re-air two Rain Media films, The Retirement Gamble, which first aired in April, and WikiSecrets, which aired in May 2011.
The Retirement Gamble will re-air on June 18. The film examined the reasons why so many Americans are finding it so difficult to retire.
WikiSecrets, which told the story of how the WikiLeaks website came in possession of hundreds of thousands of secret government documents, is scheduled to rebroadcast on July 2. The film examined the life of Bradley Manning, the army private who recently confessed to leaking the secret files. Manning, who is facing charges that include violations of the Espionage Act as well as aiding the enemy, is currently facing court martial.
Both programs are scheduled to air at 10 p.m. To check your local listings, click here.
On May 21, FRONTLINE also rebroadcast The Untouchables, a Rain Media production that investigated the reasons why no Wall Street executives have been prosecuted in connection to the financial crisis.
Broadcast Tuesday, May 24 on PBS FRONTLINE: “WikiSecrets”
It’s the biggest intelligence breach in U.S. history—the leaking of more than half-a-million classified documents on the WikiLeaks website in the spring of 2010. Behind it all, stand two very different men: Julian Assange, the Internet activist and hacker who published the documents, and an Army intelligence analyst named Bradley E. Manning, who’s currently charged with handing them over. Private Manning allegedly leaked the secret cables—along with a controversial video—in the hope of inciting “worldwide discussion, debates and reforms.” Assange’s stated mission has been to force the U.S. and other governments into maximum transparency through his whistle-blowing website. Through in-depth interviews with Manning’s father, Assange, and others close to the case, veteran FRONTLINE correspondent Martin Smith tells the full story behind the leaks. He also reports on the U.S. government’s struggle to protect national security information in a post 9/11 world.
Watch the full episode. See more FRONTLINE.
