EXCLUSIVE: The BBC and NPR are teaming on a podcast about kidnapped American journalist Austin Tice.
Josh Baker’s Where is Austin Tice? sets out to answer questions in real time about the man who many consider to be the longest captive American journalist in history.
The podcast, a rare co-pro between the BBC and NPR, will be on NPR’s Embedded feed from September 8 and will simultaneously comprise the third season of Baker’s I’m Not a Monster series for BBC Sounds and World Service. It will be hosted by Baker and investigative journalist Sara Obeidat.
Tice disappeared in Syria more than a decade ago and remains one of the biggest missing person cases of our time. His mother Debra insists her son is alive and has led a tireless campaign to bring him home — a campaign that continues to this day. He is thought to have been kidnapped by Syria’s regime led by the now-deposed Bashar al-Assad, making him the longest captive American journalist in history. Baker and Obeidat penned a BBC News investigation on the website last year that confirmed he was imprisoned by the Assad regime.
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The pod retraces Tice’s journey, allowing the audience to experience the investigation as it unfolds. It differs from the previous two seasons of I’m Not a Monster in that those cases were not unravelling in real time. The first series explored America’s Sam Sally, a mother who entered ISIS territory with her husband and children, and the second Shamima Begum, who joined ISIS as a teenager before trying to regain her British citizenship. Both have won numerous awards.
“It is rare in journalism to have the chance to do work that might offer something tangible to a family while also showing the stark reality of the Syrian regime’s brutal dictatorship,” said Baker. “That possibility has driven us throughout — alongside a responsibility to the Syrians who trusted us with their stories and are still searching for answers about their own missing relatives.”
Embedded senior supervising editor Katie Simon added: “When Josh and Sara first came to us with this story, we knew it was a rare opportunity to showcase immersive reporting about one of the most secretive regimes. The Austin Tice story gives us the chance to step into a once-hidden Syrian prison system and begin to piece together a play-by-play of Austin’s timeline from the moment he goes missing. It’s also a chance for two public media powerhouses to come together and make something new and meaningful in longform narrative journalism.”
The podcast is written, showrun and presented by Baker and investigated and produced with Obeidat. It is series-produced by Simon Maybin and produced by Lucy Burns, with Clare Fordham as series editor for BBC News Long Form Audio. It was commissioned by Daniel Clarke for BBC Radio 4 and BBC Sounds. At NPR, the podcast was edited by Robert Little, who leads NPR’s Investigations team and Embedded’s showrunner Simon. It was produced by Monika Evstatieva. The EP for Embedded is Irene Noguchi.
BBC Studios is distributing the series.
