Reality show on abductions alarms child advocates

Child-protection experts and media watchers are alarmed over an effort by a reality-TV producer to create a CBS show that attempts to find and recover abducted children with a team of former military and former law-enforcement personnel.

The show, "Recovery," is not yet on the CBS fall schedule and comes from Mark Burnett Productions, the company whose big hits are "Survivor" on CBS and "The Apprentice" with Donald Trump on NBC.

The network distributed preliminary publicity material that describes the program's concept as taking "viewers along on an emotional and life-changing ride, from the abduction to the search in all its intensity to the reunion of child and parents."

Individuals and organizations that work on behalf of missing children, including the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, say the show's premise runs contrary to the commonly held principle of relying on legal authorities to handle recovery cases. They also were scathing in their criticism of using such cases for any entertainment purpose.

"The idea for Mark Burnett's new reality show of snatching children sickens me," said Lindsey Brooks, investigating manager for Child Quest International in Campbell, Calif.

"These children he plans to recover have already been extremely emotionally damaged by being abducted. Now Burnett wants to exploit them by being on a TV show."

CBS declined through a publicist to provide more details, respond to critics or discuss its timetable for making a decision about the show. Messages left on an answering machine at Burnett's company were not returned.

The leader of the show's recovery personnel is Bazzel Baz, described as a former Marine and former CIA operative with expertise in finding and returning children. He declined to speak on the record.

Rick Smith, who was a longtime FBI agent, said he thought using a private team to recover children was "a terrible idea," but he could see it working "if it was in conjunction with law enforcement and law enforcement had the lead role."

Smith, who runs Cannon Street Investigations in San Francisco, said he could envision a variety of legal problems, but that his first reaction was distrust of the producers' motives.

Marc Klaas, whose daughter Polly was kidnapped from her Petaluma, Calif., home and murdered in 1993, said he supports the idea of bringing more attention to missing children.

But he added that CBS and Burnett appeared to be developing the show "under a veil of secrecy" instead of immediately bringing attention to the children involved.

"What that tells me is that they're more concerned with themselves than the missing children," Klaas said.

A story in the entertainment trade publication Variety, which included comments from Burnett, said the show has been under development for 18 months but "kept under wraps so as to not endanger the secret rescue missions conducted for the pilot" episode.

The story quoted Burnett as saying "Recovery" was like the CBS missing-persons drama "Without a Trace" — "but it's with a kid who really has been taken." It also quoted him as saying that law enforcement is too overburdened with "terrorism and war" to cope with every abduction case.

According to the article, the show features a former Scotland Yard detective, a former Secret Service officer, a former SWAT officer and an analyst, in addition to Baz.

Matthew Felling, media director at the Center for Media and Public Affairs in Washington, D.C., said "Recovery" raised "serious concerns," assuming it gets on the air, about provoking kidnappers who want to outsmart the show's operatives or giving them hints about avoiding apprehension.

If that results in even one child not being rescued, "the program is complicit in the kidnapping," Felling said.

Kevin Stoker, a Brigham Young University professor who specializes in media ethics, said the show's premise "strikes me as a new level of voyeurism" and that it raises serious invasion of privacy issues.

Although CBS and Burnett have provided few details about the show's format, Burnett was quoted in Variety as saying he hopes to remain involved in rescuing children, perhaps with the help of corporate sponsorship, if CBS doesn't go ahead with the show.