America'S Most Wanted

America's Most Wanted (AMW) is a top-rated “reality” crime TV show inaugurated on Fox Broadcasting on July 27, 1981, that doubles as entertainment and public service. Generally, cases that have stumped law enforcement authorities, typically those involving fugitives and missing children, are presented each week on the Fox network and its affiliates. The show's popularity is due both to its voyeuristic and sensationalist format, and its appeal for public assistance by urging viewers to help solve the crimes and to catch alleged criminals by calling in tips to a tollfree number.

Seen by more than 13 million American households a week, the show has been a tremendous success, not only with the public but with law enforcement officials as well, who credit it with helping them apprehend more than 750 criminals to date—many on the most-wanted list. Perhaps AMW's biggest highprofile coup was the recovery of 15-year-old Elizabeth Smart, who had been abducted from her home in Salt Lake City, Utah, on June 5, 2002. After an AMW segment aired several times in early 2003 profiling her alleged abductor, Brian David Mitchell, two couples simultaneously spotted Mitchell walking near Salt Lake with two women dressed in long robes and veils on March 12, 2003. They immediately called 911, stunned police arrested Mitchell, and Elizabeth became the 36th child to be recovered successfully in the 16-year history of AMW. The continuing popularity of AMW is due in no small part to follow-up reports of captures and recoveries on both the show and its Web site (http://www.americasmostwanted.com), which provide closure to cases and reinforce viewer perception that AMW works and that they, too, might be lucky and catch one of its “Most Wanted.” So great has been the show's popularity that when Fox tried to cancel AMW in the fall of 1996 because of weak ratings, the station was deluged with hundreds of thousand of letters of protest from fans, law enforcement, and government officials. It was subsequently reinstated in an expanded 1-hour format, which includes a greater emphasis on sensationalistic reenactments of crimes.

AMW is hosted by John Walsh, an actor with strong credibility stemming from a personal tragedy in 1981 in which his 6-year-old son, Adam, was abducted from a department store and killed. A nationally acclaimed and recognizable advocate of missing and exploited children, Walsh presents the “facts” of each crime case with the authoritative, get-tough-on-crime manner of a law enforcement officer. Dressed in a black leather jacket with his hair slicked back, legs astride, and arms crossed, Walsh exhorts viewers between AMW segments to catch “the bad guys.” Live footage of actual people involved in the cases, as well as reenacted segments performed by actors, are interspersed with Walsh's reporting of events and lurid promotional trailers. Reenacted segments are often highly dramatic—introduced with pathos-laden language and filmed with sinister music, lighting, and other sensational effects geared at eliciting viewer fear and loathing. Actual testimony of crime victims and their families, witnesses, law enforcement officials and experts, as well as apprehended criminals, contribute to the show's semblance of “reality.”

...