Wide Angle (TV program)
Wide Angle | |
---|---|
Genre | Documentary television series |
Presented by | Aaron Brown |
Narrated by | Jay O. Sanders |
Country of origin | ![]() |
Original language | English |
No. of seasons | 7 |
No. of episodes | 64+ (list of episodes) |
Production | |
Executive producer | Pamela Hogan |
Producers | Erin Chapman Charlotte Mangin Tamara Rosenberg |
Editor | Leigh Anne Sides |
Original release | |
Network | Thirteen/WNET and PBS |
Release | July 11 2002 – present |
Wide Angle is an international current affairs documentary series produced by Thirteen/WNET New York for national broadcast on PBS and for worldwide distribution. Pamela Hogan is the Executive Producer, Nina Chaudry is the Senior Producer, and the series is currently hosted by veteran journalist Aaron Brown. Wide Angle began broadcasting on PBS in 2002 with the aim of extending Americans’ awareness and understanding of the changing world in which we live, and it is the only series on American television devoted exclusively to reporting in-depth on international issues. The program currently airs on Tuesday nights from July through September at 9 p.m. on most PBS stations.
Wide Angle programs consist of long-form, character-driven documentaries exploring pressing international issues through human stories, often followed by an interview with a foreign policy expert to connect the films’ themes to American concerns. The series completed its seventh season in 2008, and in that time it has produced more than 60 films in over 50 countries. Previous interview guests include Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, UN Deputy Secretary-General Mark Malloch Brown, Mexico’s former Foreign Minister Jorge Castañeda, former Ugandan government minister Betty Bigombe, Nobel Prize Laureates Joseph Stiglitz and Amartya Sen, WHO Director-General Margaret Chan, Women for Women International CEO Zainab Salbi, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, writer Arundhati Roy and former U.S. Secretaries of State George Mitchell and James A. Baker III. Previous anchors for the series include Bill Moyers, former Assistant Secretary of State James Rubin, Mishal Husain, and Daljit Dhaliwal.
Wide Angle also produces a companion website and additional educational materials for each film. The series website [1] includes background information on the issues from the films, interactive features, exclusive video and audio, and full streaming versions of many programs. Additional educational materials are distributed to high schools and colleges. In 2006, Wide Angle’s online Window into Global History [2] earned the Goldman Sachs Foundation Excellence in International Education Award.
Wide Angle programs have won numerous awards, including an Emmy, the Sigma Delta Chi, the Chicago International Television Hugo award, the Gabriel award, several top awards from the South Asian Journalists Association (SAJA), citations from the Overseas Press Club, and numerous Cine Golden Eagle awards.
Episodes
The July 2002 pilot episode Saddam’s Ultimate Solution was hosted by former Assistant Secretary of State and chief State Department spokesman James Rubin. It focused on Saddam Hussein’s biological and chemical weapons and the wider threat they imply.[1] In a host interview broadcasted immediately following the episode, resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute Richard Perle stated that "the thing that is brought home so clearly in this film is the connection among terrorist organizations now implicating Saddam Hussein directly with Al Qaeda".[2]
See also
- Frontline
- Independent Lens
- P.O.V. (PBS series)
References
- ^ Patricia Brennan (July 8, 2002). "PBS Uses 'Wide Angle' Lens to Take Global Snapshots". Los Angeles Times. p. F-10.
- ^ "Saddam's Ultimate Solution - Host Interview Transcript". PBS.