“The Naked Truth” to Include Interactive Digital and Social Content as well as a Investigative Documentary Series Premiering Sunday, January 31 @ 8PM
FUSION today announced the launch of “The Naked Truth” (@NakedTruth), a new cross-platform investigative franchise. FUSION’s award-winning investigative team takes transparency to a new level, shining a light on stories others don’t want told. “The Naked Truth” surfaces the documents, tallies the numbers, and confronts the gritty issues FUSION’s young, multicultural audience cares about, no matter how uncomfortable. “The Naked Truth” will produce digital and social content as well as a new documentary series that will air on FUSION’s cable network. The first season of the documentary series premieres Sunday, January 31 @ 8PM with “The Naked Truth: Death by Fentanyl,” reported by Chief Investigative Correspondent Mariana van Zeller.
Next week “The Naked Truth” will publish an innovative kind of interactive investigation that lets the audience dive deeper into the parts of the story that interest them most. The report, which utilizes Rapt Media’s interactive video platform, focuses on the mugshot industry, websites that post mugshots and then charge hundreds, even thousands of dollars to take them down whether you are guilty or not.
“We have assembled one of the most dynamic teams of young journalists to take our brand of immersive investigative journalism to a new level. They reflect their generation’s desire to challenge powerful institutions in pursuit of the truth — from shining a light on the country’s unjust juvenile justice system to exploring the role of pharmaceutical companies in the U.S. heroin epidemic, said Keith Summa, executive producer of investigations at FUSION. “I am thrilled that with the launch of ‘The Naked Truth’ we are continuing to expand our efforts to bring high impact stories that matter to young, multicultural audiences.”
“The Naked Truth: Death by Fentanyl” | Drug overdoses are soaring to new highs in America. The epidemic is a hot-button issue in the New Hampshire Presidential Primaries. But while heroin blankets the headlines, an even deadlier drug has taken the epidemic from crisis to calamity. They call it “China White,” "Drop Dead” or “the serial killer of drugs” – Fentanyl. It’s a synthetic opiate similar to heroin, but far more powerful. According to a recently released report, Fentanyl was involved in 253 of the 351 opiate overdoses in New Hampshire, whereas heroin alone was the cause of 28 deaths in the state. This FUSION investigation tracks who is feeding the Fentanyl epidemic. It is a story that will take viewers from New England to Wall Street to the land of ‘El Chapo’ to understand why so many are getting hooked and dying - and how pharmaceutical companies contribute to the problem.
FUSION Investigative Correspondent Mariana van Zeller has been reporting on prescription drug abuse in the United States for years – first with her Peabody-award winning documentary “The OxyContin Express” (2009), which exposed a bustling pill pipeline stretching from South Florida to Appalachia and then with "Gateway to Heroin” (2011), which was one of the first in-depth looks at the trend of users switching from pills to heroin.
“The Naked Truth” is executive produced by Keith Summa. Nina Alvarez serves as senior producer and Adam Weinstein as senior editor of digital investigations. “Death by Fentanyl” was produced by Darren Foster and Cristina Costantini.