Six weeks after being convicted of possessing and transporting child sexual abuse material, the former ABC News producer James Gordon Meek and its mark on the world of investigative journalism are quietly disappearing.
Hulu removed Meek’s Emmy-nominated documentary “3212 Un-Redacted” from its platform last week. The film, which delves into the deaths of four US Special Forces soldiers in Africa and exposes a government cover-up, was produced by ABC News and first premiered on Hulu in November 2021.
A source familiar with the matter says the film’s licensing period has expired and will not be renewed. Although the film, which is based on Meek’s reporting, was considered an impressive feat of investigative journalism, the prospect of keeping it on Hulu became untenable given that the disgraced producer appears prominently on camera.
Likewise, ABC News has also quietly removed a tagline from all of Meek’s work that read: “Editor’s note: ABC News investigative reporter James Gordon Meek received the 2022 World Press Freedom Award from the James W. Foley Legacy Foundation for reporting on hostage cases. since 1993. “Meek was set to receive the award during a ceremony in May 2022, but he never accepted the trophy because his apartment was raided by the FBI days before.
ABC News and Hulu declined to comment.
On September 29, Meek was sentenced to six years in federal prison in a Virginia court after Pleading guilty to exchanging illicit materials online.including a video showing the rape of a baby.
Before his sentencing, the four-time Emmy nominee and one-time winner was facing up to 40 years in prison. But his lawyers argued for the five-year mandatory minimum sentence and submitted letters of support from several journalists, including documentary filmmaker Andrew Fredericks and former Washington Post reporter Allan Lengel, according to court documents reviewed by Variety. (The Gold Star families depicted in “3212 Un-Redacted” made no plea for leniency on Meek’s behalf.) Fredericks called Meek “a loving and dedicated father” who “will continue to do everything in his power to overcome any trauma that contributed to his crimes,” while Lengel insisted his friend “was clearly remorseful.” Sources say at least one journalist was fired from his job for supporting the corrupt producer.
Meek’s journey from star investigative reporter to pariah also led to his name being removed from Simon & Schuster’s book “Operation Pineapple Express: The Incredible Story of a Group of Americans Who Undertook One Last Mission and Fulfilled a Promise in Afghanistan.” , which he co-written with Lt. Col. Scott Mann, a retired Green Beret. In the months leading up to the FBI raid on his home, Meek had met with several top production companies, including Brad Pitt’s Plan B and producers like Dana Brunetti, to adapt the book. Basil Iwanyk (“Sicario”) obtained the rights to the book, in which Meek initially played a key role in the narrative as the journalist who helped US-trained commandos escape Afghanistan amid the 2021 US withdrawal. But that project is now dead. although the book, without Meek’s name, became a New York Times bestseller.
Meek is not the first journalist accused of crimes related to pedophilia. His case is reminiscent of that of Larry Matthews, a Peabody Award-winning NPR reporter whose Maryland home was raided by the FBI in 1996. Agents found sexually explicit images of prepubescent girls on his computer hard drive, and he was formally charged. next year. , becoming the first person convicted of accessing child pornography while working as a journalist, according to the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. matthews was sentenced to 18 months in a federal prison.
More than a decade later, David Malakoff resigned from NPR’s Science and Technology section after being accused of possessing child pornography. A U.S. District Court judge ignored federal sentencing guidelines that recommended six to eight years in prison for his crime and instead opted for a sentence of probation, a fine, community service and registration as a felon. sexual.
More recently, a former ABC producer found himself in trouble over allegations involving underage victims. In December 2021, CNN fired producer John Griffin following his indictment by a federal grand jury in Vermont for attempting to entice minors as young as 9 to engage in illegal sexual activity. In June he was sentenced to more than 19 years in prison. It doesn’t appear that Meek, who joined ABC in May 2013, overlapped with Griffin, who left ABC for CNN in April 2013.
