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Fox to Bring Back ‘24’ as a 12-Hour Special Event

May 13, 2013 by Leave a Comment

Jack Bauer will soon have another ticking time bomb to defuse.

“24,” the counterterrorism drama that brought to life the American’s public’s fears after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, is returning to Fox as a 12-hour special event next year, the network said Monday. Kiefer Sutherland will return in the title role of Jack Bauer, a secret agent who will stop at nothing to stave off impending attacks.

“The response to ‘24’ is unlike anything I have ever experienced as an actor before,” Mr. Sutherland said in a statement. “To have the chance to reunite with the character, Jack Bauer, is like finding a lost friend.” He thanked the producers and Fox for the opportunity and added, “Make no mistake, my goal is to knock your socks off. See you soon.”

Fox said the new version of “24,” with the subtitle “Live Another Day,” would likely premiere in May 2014. It will be shown for 12 weeks in a row as part of what Fox calls a “limited series” strategy. That means it is intended to be a one-time event — though in television, those plans can always change.

The network has a second “limited series,” called “Wayward Pines,” in the works for 2014 as well.

Fox said “24: Live Another Day” would stick with the show’s original conceit, a 24-hour clock, but would skip some hours and condense others to fit into the 12-hour format. Kevin Reilly, the chairman of Fox Broadcasting, told reporters on a Monday morning conference call that 12 hours “is the perfect form” for “24” this time around because the spine of the past seasons had about 12 hours worth of action, with “little events and connective tissue in between.”

Fox will promote the plans for the franchise’s return at its annual event for advertisers on Monday afternoon.

“24,” at its height in the early 2000s, regularly drew 10 million to 15 million viewers, and it became a big hit on DVD, partly thanks to its 24-hour format. (It was meant for binge-viewing years before the term was popularized by Netflix and other streaming services.)

The show ended in 2010. There has been occasional talk since then about a “24” film, but Mr. Reilly said that the producers concluded that “’24’ being compressed into two hours isn’t ’24.’ ”

With its brutal scenes of torture at the hands of Bauer, the series was sometimes a rorschach test for post-9/11 counterterrorism strategies. The threats portrayed in “24,” and Bauer’s responses to them, were repeatedly evoked by Bush administration officials and Republican presidential candidate. Some activists blamed the show for popularizing the use of torture and misleading viewers into thinking that the tactics were effective.

Howard Gordon, an executive producer of the series, said in a statement on Monday that the Bauer character “has evolved through the years, and this new and exciting event series format is perfect to tell the next chapter of his story and continue to reflect how the world is changing.”

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/14/business/media/fox-to-bring-back-24-as-a-12-hour-special-event.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Filed Under: Media Business Tagged With: , ,

F.A.A. Chief on Leave After Arrest

December 6, 2011 by Leave a Comment

WASHINGTON — The head of the Federal Aviation Administration has been placed on leave after he was arrested over the weekend in Virginia on a drunken driving charge.

J. Randolph Babbitt, 65, the F.A.A. administrator, was pulled over at 10:30 p.m. Saturday after an officer saw him driving on the wrong side of the road, two blocks from the police station in Fairfax, said Capt. Mike Artone, a spokesman for the police department. The officer arrested Mr. Babbitt after discovering that he was “under the influence of alcohol,” Captain Artone said.

Transportation officials put Mr. Babbitt on leave Monday after he requested it and “are in discussions with legal counsel” about his employment status, the Transportation Department said in a statement. His deputy, Michael Huerta, will manage the aviation agency for now, the statement said.

On Monday afternoon, Jay Carney, the White House press secretary, said the White House had just learned about the case. He declined to say whether President Obama would ask Mr. Babbitt to resign and directed questions to the Transportation Department.

Mr. Babbitt was charged with driving while intoxicated, a misdemeanor that carries a penalty of up to a year in jail and a $2,500 fine, said Captain Artone. Mr. Babbitt did not have a passenger in the car and was not involved in a crash, he said.

Captain Artone said he could not discuss Mr. Babbitt’s blood-alcohol concentration. However, under state law a minimum 0.08 blood-alcohol concentration is sufficient to charge a suspect with driving while intoxicated.

Mr. Babbitt was released on a $1,000 personal recognizance bond Sunday morning, according to jail records. He is scheduled to appear in court Feb. 2.

Mr. Babbitt did not return phone calls to his home in Reston, Va.

Mr. Babbitt, a pilot for 25 years at Eastern Air Lines and later the head of the Air Line Pilots Association, became head of the aviation agency in June 2009. The job has a five-year term.

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=0edf02864933ba4c47c61d197fe64813

Filed Under: Business News Tagged With: , ,

Qantas Planes Return to the Skies After Court Order

October 31, 2011 by Leave a Comment

The tribunal’s decision granted 21 days for Qantas and its workers to resolve their acrimonious dispute — which had prompted the airline’s move to halt flights — and reach a binding agreement or face compulsory arbitration.

A flight from Sydney to Jakarta departed shortly after the Australian Civil Aviation Safety Authority cleared it for takeoff on Monday afternoon, The Associated Press reported.

As many as 70,000 passengers had been stranded since Saturday during the suspension of service by the airline.

Qantas’s move to keep its planes out of the skies raised the stakes in the confrontation with its unions after months of tension between the two sides.

The airline, one of the 10 largest in the world, had been hit by a series of labor problems in recent months as employees voiced concern about wage inequality and the moving of jobs out of Australia. Workers staged various actions that included brief strikes and the refusal to work overtime.

Despite a direct appeal by the embattled Australian prime minister, Julia Gillard, to solve the matter swiftly, hundreds of flights were canceled over the weekend and it took a court order to get the planes moving again.

Ms. Gillard tried to seize some credit for the resolution in a series of news media appearances Monday, as her opponents argued that she had failed to break the impasse herself because of her ties to the labor unions.

“I’ve done what I needed to do to get this dispute brought to an end, to get the planes back in the sky,” The Australian, a daily newspaper, reported her as saying.

The opposition leader, Tony Abbott, wasted no time in blaming the government for the debacle, however, which paralyzed much of the air travel throughout the country and threatened to tarnish one of the nation’s most iconic brands.

“The government didn’t do anything, so many people have been sitting in terminals because the government has been sitting on its hands,” he said in an interview on Australian television. “I think the public has had a win, but it is no thanks to the Gillard government.”

Meanwhile, the chief executive of Qantas, Alan Joyce, who faced sharp criticism over his decision to ground the fleet, struck a contrite tone as he promised to get its planes flying again.

“I apologize to all Qantas passengers that have been impacted by the industrial action by unions over the past few months and in particular the past few days,” he said in a statement after the ruling.

Qantas has had to reduce and reschedule flights for weeks because of the labor actions. But the unions said they were the injured party and accused the company of planning to outsource the company’s operations to Asia.

The grounding of the fleet cost the airline an estimated $21 million a day. Qantas, which employs about 35,000 people, said it had already been losing $16 million a week in revenue as a result of the union actions.

The carrier has several flights a day from Australia to the United States, including routes to New York, Los Angeles, Dallas and Honolulu.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/01/business/global/qantas-planes-return-to-the-skies-after-court-order.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Filed Under: Global Business Tagged With: , ,

Hackers Commandeer a Fox News Twitter Account

July 5, 2011 by Leave a Comment

The Twitter account, @foxnewspolitics, one of many operated by Fox News, claimed that the president had been fatally shot while campaigning in Iowa, but gave no source for the news. On Monday morning, FoxNews.com first posted a brief statement saying that the reports were incorrect, and that it regretted “any distress the false Tweets may have created.”

The six messages were removed around noon on Monday, about 10 hours after being posted, but not before attracting a flurry of attention.

Because of the seriousness of the content, senior Secret Service officials held a conference call Monday morning to discuss the posts, said a law enforcement official who requested anonymity because of the investigation into the matter.

A spokesman for the Secret Service, George Ogilvie, said, “We are investigating the matter and will be conducting appropriate follow-up.” The White House declined to comment.

In a statement Monday afternoon, Twitter indicated that its own servers had not been broken into; instead, the e-mail account associated with the specific Twitter feed had been compromised, and from there the hacker or hackers had been able to gain access.

Twitter referred other questions about the incident to Fox News; a spokeswoman there did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The FoxNews.com Twitter account for political news, which has about 36,000 followers, had been dormant since Friday, but at about 2 a.m. Monday, a message was posted there that eerily presaged the posts that would follow about the president: “just regained full access to our Twitter and email. Happy 4th.” The next post said that the president “has just passed. The President is dead. A sad 4th of July indeed.”

The next one said he had been “shot twice in the lower pelvic area and in the neck; shooter unknown,” and offered the disturbing detail that he “bled out.” The next post said that the president had been shot at Ross’s restaurant in Iowa.

The last message stated: “We wish @joebiden the best of luck as our new President of the United States. In such a time of madness, there’s light at the end of tunnel.”

Mr. Obama had been spending the weekend with his family at Camp David, and returned to the White House on Sunday, according to the official schedule.

FoxNews.com posted a short statement early Monday explaining what had happened: “Hackers sent out several malicious and false Tweets claiming that President Obama had been assassinated. Those reports are incorrect, of course, and the president is spending the July 4 holiday with his family. The hacking is being investigated, and FoxNews.com regrets any distress the false Tweets may have created.”

Twitter accounts are hacked from time to time, but Monday’s incident attracted national attention because an assassination had been mentioned and a major news organization had been affected. Increasingly, news organizations like Fox News have embraced Twitter as a means of promotion and interaction with readers.

The false Twitter posts about Mr. Obama seemed even more provocative because Fox News is widely perceived to be a voice of opposition to the Obama administration. On Monday, thousands of people on Twitter poked fun at the incident and at Fox News by pretending to guess Fox’s Twitter passwords.

A spokeswoman for Twitter, Carolyn Penner, would not address why the posts to the Fox News political account on Twitter stayed up so long, nor would she address reports about who was responsible.

A group calling itself the Script Kiddies claimed responsibility for hacking the Fox News Twitter account, according to Adam Peck, the outgoing editor of Think, an online student magazine operated at Stony Brook University on Long Island, who said he had communicated via instant message early Monday with a member of the group.

The Script Kiddies, Mr. Peck said, had posted to its own Twitter account that it hacked the political Twitter account of Fox News and wanted to speak to The Huffington Post, supplying an address at the instant-messaging service AIM. Mr. Peck, 23, said he figured he would try the address as well.

The first conversation took place around 12:38 a.m., Mr. Peck said, before the inflammatory posts to Twitter appeared. “We did ask them what their purpose was,” Mr. Peck said. “They said that they did align themselves with Anonymous and the antisec movement,” he added, meaning “antisecurity movement,” or hacking efforts intended to uncover information corporations or governments are trying to hide.

In the instant message, the person claiming to be a representative of the Script Kiddies said to Mr. Peck that there “will always be a group of people that need to stand up for everyone else and attempt to keep the governments in balance with its people.” The person claimed to be a former member of the better-known hacker group Anonymous.

According to the instant-message record, which Mr. Peck provided to The New York Times, the person with whom he communicated at Script Kiddies said that Fox News “was selected because we figured their security would be just as much of a joke as their reporting.”

Mr. Peck said he again contacted to the Script Kiddies when the first postings about the president were published, asking if the group had hacked the Twitter feed.

Mr. Peck said he received a message in response: “I cannot confirm that at this time. Stay tuned.”

Adding to the confusion, the Twitter account for the Script Kiddies at some point seemed to disappear, Mr. Peck said. He said he started “frantically searching elsewhere to find corroboration of this story.” But after 10 minutes of not finding it anywhere online, he said he figured it was the work of the Script Kiddies.

Several news reports have referred to Think’s interview, but for a time on Monday, the link to the interview was disabled. Mr. Peck, who will be graduating in December with a degree in journalism, said he suspected that the shutdown happened because of overuse.

“We’re not used to having all that much traffic,” he said.

Eric Schmitt contributed reporting.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: July 4, 2011

An earlier version of this article erroneously defined the “antisec movement” as meaning “anti-secrecy.” In fact it means “anti-security.”

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=d319c69858de3864fe1d305be8601283

Filed Under: Business News Tagged With: , ,