By David Bauder, Media Writer
NEW YORK (AP) --Former CBS News President Susan Zirinsky is launching a studio for unscripted programming, with two 9/11-related documentaries debuting over the next two days.
Zirinsky hopes the name See It Now Studios conveys a sense of urgency for younger viewers while reminding the historically-minded of the 1950s-era CBS News series, "See It Now," featuring Edward R. Murrow.
Her No. 2 at the new studio will be an ABC News veteran and documentarian, Terence Wrong, known best for fly-on-the-wall docuseries showing the inner workings of hospitals.
"I want to make some noise," said Zirinsky, longtime "48 Hours" producer before taking over the news division. "I want to bring you things where you will say, 'Wow, I didn't know that.' I want to bring you inside where you didn't have access."
The studio's first project, "The 26th Street Garage: The FBI's Untold Story of 9/11," premieres Thursday on the Paramount+ streaming service, Narrated by Tom Selleck, it shows how the FBI was forced to abandon its New York headquarters after the attack and set up in shop in an automotive garage.
On Friday, CBS and Paramount+ will both air "Race Against Time: The CIA and 9/11," a look at the agency's failed efforts to stop Osama bin Laden and an attack they knew would be coming sometime, somewhere.
Also upcoming are a four-part series on Ghislaine Maxwell, the late Jeffrey Epstein's alleged accomplice in sex trafficking, and a six-part series on the extremists behind the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S Capitol. Both are planned for Paramount+.
Zirinsky said she believed there was a hunger for long-form storytelling, and See It Now Studios will serve as a content generator for CBS News and Viacom. While the company will be destination for many of its projects, the studio will also offer material to outside outlets, she said.
Zirinsky, Wrong and their team will develop their own projects and also purchase material from others, she said.
Harvey Weinstein hit with new sex crime charge in New York
Harvey Weinstein pleaded not guilty Wednesday to a new sex crime charge in New York, as he awaits retrial in his landmark #MeToo case.
Details of the new allegations were not immediately available. He was charged with committing a criminal sex act.
The jailed ex-movie mogul has long maintained that any sexual activity was consensual.
Prosecutors revealed last week that Weinstein had been indicted on additional sex crime charges that weren't part of the case that led to his now-overturned 2020 conviction. But the new indictment was sealed until his arraignment.
Prosecutors have said that the grand jury heard evidence of up to three alleged assaults — two in hotels in the Tribeca neighborhood and one at a lower Manhattan residential building. The purported incidents took place from the mid-2000s to 2016, prosecutors said.
But it's not clear whether any of those allegations underlie the new indictment.
While bracing for the new charges, Weinstein also is awaiting retrial after New York state's highest court this spring overturned his 2020 conviction on rape and sexual assault charges involving two women. The high court, called the Court of Appeals, ordered a new trial, which is tentatively scheduled to begin Nov. 12.
The Court of Appeals ruled that the then-trial judge unfairly allowed testimony against him based on allegations that were not part of the case. That judge's term expired in 2022, and he is no longer on the bench.
Prosecutors have said they'll seek to fold the new charges into the retrial, but Weinstein's lawyers say it should be a separate case.
Weinstein, who also was convicted in 2022 in a Los Angeles rape case, remains behind bars while awaiting his New York retrial.
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