INTERVIEW: Tony Harris asks the tough questions at the ‘Scene of the Crime’
Photo: Tony Harris hosts the true-crime series Scene of the Crime. Photo courtesy of Investigation Discovery / Provided with permission.
Tony Harris is a career journalist who carved out a broadcast career at both CNN and Al Jazeera. In recent years, he has been turning his focus to crime investigations for his series Scene of the Crime, now in its second season on Investigation Discovery. New episodes air Sundays at 10 p.m.
“I came to the channel from days and years of anchoring, first at CNN and then over at Jazeera,” Harris said in a recent phone interview. “The reason I was aware of the channel at all is because of my former colleague, Paula Zahn. That’s how I became aware of the channel years ago, but I would watch Paul’s show.”
What changed Harris from a once-in-a-while viewer to a dedicated devotee of all things I.D. was a trip to Panama. He called the experience a “breakthrough.”
“This was a couple years ago, and I was in Panama on vacation,” he said. “I’m literally unpacking in the hotel, and I just watch the television as background noise. So I’m flipping around, and I see that I.D. is on the system. Remember, I’m on vacation, and I’m unpacking. I had happen to me what happened to so many people who watched this channel. I started with one show, stopped unpacking, and three hours later, I hadn’t unpacked. And I had watched three shows. I was hooked — so familiar with the channel, watched a little bit, certainly watched my former colleague, but three years ago became totally hooked on the channel while on vacation in Panama. And since then, I’ve watched just about all the shows now.”
Now he finds himself as one of the stars of the network, and Scene of the Crime leads the pack of shows that reinvestigate violent crimes of the past. It’s difficult subject matter, but Harris has a career that has prepared him for the tough questions and shocking revelations.
“The big change for us in the second season is that I just wanted more challenging stories,” he said. “I wanted more complex stories. I wanted to dig a little deeper. I wanted to test myself a little bit more. … So for me that [meant] screwing on the investigation hat even tighter around my head and digging into more of the files and working with the team more closely in the search for justice and how the investigators work through these cases, so I think in the second season, what folks have seen so far is that we’ve got more complex cases. We call them twisty-turny cases, and they’re a roller-coaster ride. And we are taken down any number of rabbit holes. None of these investigations are open and closed, and real clean without real challenges. We get into those areas that are tricky where investigators are led down little rabbit holes, and they’re not sure. They’re chasing suspects that don’t pan out, and we take that ride with them.”
Harris called the stories on season two more intense and more compelling. They are investigations that took him to Salt Lake City; Navasota, Texas; Eunice, New Mexico; and Kinston, North Carolina; among other locations. The result of each case is a horrible, community-shaking crime, and Harris and his team come to town seeking justice and answers.
“We’re working more closely with the families and the investigators to get to the bottom of those cases,” he said. “We found, in some cases, details that were overlooked or weren’t given proper weight in the investigation in our mind. We pushed the investigators on those points. For me, it’s a more interesting show to do. It’s a more compelling show on the second season. We ramped up production values on it as well, and I’m really happy with the work of the team and obviously the support of people who love the channel and have supported our show and welcomed us in for a second season. And the support of the channel has been amazing.”
Asking tough questions — sometimes to the families of victims — does not come easy to Harris, but he has been trained on how to be sensitive to the people he interviews.
“When I started in this business forever ago, that was the hardest thing to wrap my mind around is that I was going to have to go to a family on their worst day and say, ‘Tell me about what happened to your loved one,'” he said. “That’s horrible, and any journalist would tell you that it’s horrible.”
Now that Investigation Discovery has cemented its top place among other true-crime programming, the reservations that some family members may have had about talking with the cameras rolling has largely dissipated. Harris said the interviewees view the opportunity to be on Scene of the Crime as a chance to share a testimonial or memorial.
“They’re willing to come forward and talk to me about the worst day of their lives, and I’m thankful for it,” he said. “I don’t take it for granted, and I go in as prepared as I can. And if I have any ability at all, it’s to connect with these people where they live. I grew up a poor kid from Baltimore, and I’m traveling into small towns mostly across the country to talk to people whose stories aren’t being told my big media. And so I don’t take it for granted. I appreciate it so much. … We’re talking about their hopes or dreams or aspirations or kids, what they want for the kids. We talk politics. We talk everything, everything, everything. That’s the great joy of the job for me. Someone who was kind of tired of being on an anchor desk to be able to get back out into the field and talk to people and be in their living rooms and then make a real connection with them has been a godsend for me.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Scene of the Crime with Tony Harris continues on Sundays at 10 p.m. on Investigation Discovery. Click here for more information.
