''Wide Angle'' is an American

documentary A documentary film (often described simply as a documentary) is a nonfiction Film, motion picture intended to "document reality, primarily for instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". The American author and ...

television program produced by Thirteen/

WNET WNET (channel 13), branded on-air as Thirteen (stylized as THIRTEEN), is a primary PBS member television station licensed to Newark, New Jersey, United States, serving the New York City area. Owned by The WNET Group (formerly known as the Educ ...

New York for broadcast on

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educat ...

and for worldwide distribution. The weekly one-hour program covered international

current affairs Current affairs may refer to: News * ''Current Affairs'' (magazine) a bimonthly American magazine of culture and politics. * Current affairs (news format), a genre of broadcast journalism * ''Current Affairs'', former name for ''Behind the News' ...

and was last hosted by veteran journalist Aaron Brown. ''Wide Angle'' began broadcasting on PBS in 2002, and aimed to expand the awareness and understanding of Americans about the changing world in which they live. It was the only documentary program on American television devoted exclusively to reporting in-depth on international issues. Following its eighth and final season it was nominated for a 2010

International Documentary Association International Documentary Association (IDA), founded in 1982, is a non-profit 501(c)(3) that promotes nonfiction filmmakers, and is dedicated to increasing public awareness for the documentary genre. Their major program areas are: Advocacy, Film ...

Continuing Series award.

Production

''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 Foreign policy, also known as external policy, is the set of strategies and actions a State (polity), state employs in its interactions with other states, unions, and international entities. It encompasses a wide range of objectives, includ ...

expert to connect the films’ themes to American concerns. The program completed its eighth season in 2009, and in that time it had produced more than 60 films in over 50 countries. ''Wide Angle'' also produced a companion website, still extant, and additional educational materials for each film. The program's website 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 Angles online ''Window into Global History'' project earned the

Goldman Sachs Foundation The Goldman Sachs Foundation is a New York–based, not-for-profit private foundation that is a subsidiary of the financial services firm Goldman Sachs and has the goal of bettering humanity worldwide, especially regarding health and education. In ...

's Prize for Excellence in International Education. Previous anchors for the program include

Bill Moyers Bill Moyers (born Billy Don Moyers; June 5, 1934) is an American journalist and political commentator. Under the Johnson administration he served from 1965 to 1967 as the eleventh White House Press Secretary. He was a director of the Council ...

, former Assistant Secretary of State

James Rubin James Phillip Rubin (born March 28, 1960) is an American former diplomat and journalist who served as U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs, assistant secretary of state for public affairs in the Clinton Administration, Clinton ad ...

Mishal Husain Mishal Husain (born 12 March 1973) is a British journalist, broadcaster and author. She is best known for having presented a range of BBC News programmes, most notably BBC Radio 4's ''Today'' programme. She has occasionally appeared as a relief ...

, and

Daljit Dhaliwal Daljit Dhaliwal (born 8 September 1962) is a British newsreader and television presenter. Dhaliwal is a former news presenter for the Al-Jazeera English news service that was broadcast from Washington, D.C. Previously, she was the anchor cha ...

. Previous interview guests include Senator

Hillary Clinton Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton ( Rodham; born October 26, 1947) is an American politician, lawyer and diplomat. She was the 67th United States secretary of state in the administration of Barack Obama from 2009 to 2013, a U.S. senator represent ...

, UN Deputy Secretary-General

Mark Malloch Brown George Mark Malloch Brown, Baron Malloch-Brown (born 16 September 1953) is a British diplomat, communications consultant, journalist and former politician serving as president of Open Society Foundations since 2021, having previously served as ...

, Mexico’s former Foreign Minister Jorge Castañeda, former Ugandan government minister Betty Oyella Bigombe, Nobel Prize Laureates

Joseph E. Stiglitz Joseph Eugene Stiglitz (; born February 9, 1943) is an American New Keynesian economist, a public policy analyst, political activist, and a professor at Columbia University. He is a recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (2 ...

and

Amartya Sen Amartya Kumar Sen (; born 3 November 1933) is an Indian economist and philosopher. Sen has taught and worked in England and the United States since 1972. In 1998, Sen received the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his contributions ...

WHO The World Health Organization (WHO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations which coordinates responses to international public health issues and emergencies. It is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, and has 6 regional offices and 15 ...

Director-General

Margaret Chan Margaret Chan Fung Fu-chun (born 21 August 1947) is a Chinese-Canadian physician, who served as the Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO) delegating the People's Republic of China from 2006 to 2017. Chan previously served a ...

, Women for Women International

CEO A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a chief executive or managing director, is the top-ranking corporate officer charged with the management of an organization, usually a company or a nonprofit organization. CEOs find roles in variou ...

Zainab Salbi Zainab Salbi (; born 1969) is an Iraqi American women's rights activist, writer, television show host, and podcaster. She is the co-founder of Daughters for Earth, a fund and a movement of Daughters rising up worldwide with climate solutions ...

, ''New York Times'' columnist

Nicholas Kristof Nicholas Donabet Kristof (born April 27, 1959) is an American journalist and political commentator. A winner of two Pulitzer Prizes, he is a regular CNN contributor and an op-ed columnist for ''The New York Times''. Born in Chicago, Kristof wa ...

, writer

Arundhati Roy Suzanna Arundhati Roy (; born 24 November 1961) is an Indian author best known for her novel ''The God of Small Things'' (1997), which won the Booker Prize for Fiction in 1997 and became the best-selling book by a non-expatriate Indian author. ...

and former U.S. Secretaries of State George Mitchell and

James A. Baker III James Addison Baker III (born April 28, 1930) is an American attorney, diplomat and statesman. A member of the Republican Party, he served as the 10th White House chief of staff and 67th United States secretary of the treasury under President ...

Episodes

The July 2002 pilot episode "Saddam’s Ultimate Solution" was hosted by former Assistant Secretary of State and chief

State Department The United States Department of State (DOS), or simply the State Department, is an executive department of the U.S. federal government responsible for the country's foreign policy and relations. Equivalent to the ministry of foreign affairs o ...

spokesman James Rubin. It focused on

Saddam Hussein Saddam Hussein (28 April 1937 – 30 December 2006) was an Iraqi politician and revolutionary who served as the fifth president of Iraq from 1979 until Saddam Hussein statue destruction, his overthrow in 2003 during the 2003 invasion of Ira ...

’s biological and chemical weapons and the wider threat they imply. In a host interview broadcast immediately following the episode, resident fellow at the

American Enterprise Institute The American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, known simply as the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), is a center-right think tank based in Washington, D.C., that researches government, politics, economics, and social welfare ...

Richard Perle Richard Norman Perle (born September 16, 1941) is an American political advisor who served as the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Global Strategic Affairs under President Ronald Reagan. He began his political career as a senior staff member to ...

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 , image = Flag of Jihad.svg , caption = Jihadist flag, Flag used by various al-Qaeda factions , founder = Osama bin Laden{{Assassinated, Killing of Osama bin Laden , leaders = {{Plainlist, * Osama bin Lad ...

Reception

''Wide Angle'' programs have won numerous awards, including an

Emmy Award The Emmy Awards, or Emmys, are an extensive range of awards for artistic and technical merit for the television industry. A number of annual Emmy Award ceremonies are held throughout the year, each with their own set of rules and award categor ...

, the

Sigma Delta Chi Award The Sigma Delta Chi Awards are presented annually by the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) (formerly Sigma Delta Chi) for excellence in journalism. The SPJ states the purpose of the award is to promote "the free flow of information vital ...

, the Chicago International Television Hugo award, the

Gabriel Award The Gabriel Awards are a Catholic honor awarded each year for excellence in broadcasting. They were started by the Catholic Academy for Communication Arts Professionals in 1965, and are currently administered by the Catholic Media Association. ...

, several top awards from the

South Asian Journalists Association The South Asian Journalists Association (SAJA) was founded in 1994 in New York City. Sree Sreenivisan, Dilip Massand, M.K. Srinivasan and Om Malik co-founded SAJA as a networking organization for South Asian journalists. It is a group of more th ...

(SAJA), citations from the

Overseas Press Club The Overseas Press Club of America (OPC) was founded in 1939 in New York City by a group of foreign correspondents. The wire service reporter Carol Weld was a founding member, as was the war correspondent Peggy Hull. The club seeks to maintain ...

, and 22 Cine Golden Eagle awards. ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'' had a mixed review of the first program "Saddam’s Ultimate Solution", especially concerning the interview of Richard Perle by host James Rubin:

Focal Point

In December 2008, ''Wide Angle'' launched, ''Focal Point'', a new online-exclusive documentary program. Like ''Wide Angle'', ''Focal Point'' offers a deeper understanding of forces shaping the world today through compelling human stories, with ''Focal Point'' providing a venue for shorter, less formal pieces. In the first episode of ''Focal Point'', "From Jihad to Rehab", Canadian journalist Nancy Durham reports from a rehabilitation center in Saudi Arabia, where art therapy and religious re-education are being used to reform militant jihadists.

References

External links