A actuality TV sequence meant to highlight the New York Police Department has spawned a real-life authorized drama involving the town and the present’s producer, Jordan McGraw — the son of TV’s “Dr. Phil” McGraw.
The metropolis sued the youthful McGraw and his manufacturing firm this week for breach of contract and obtained a court docket order that blocks them, no less than briefly, from promoting or disseminating any footage from the unfinished and unaired present, tentatively titled “Behind the Badge.”
“Dr. Phil” McGraw— a medical psychologist turned TV persona — hosted the sequence, interviewing officers and displaying as much as crime scenes. Episodes have been slated to air on his MeritTV cable and streaming channels, the place he’d beforehand accomplished segments that includes the police division.
On Thursday, McGraw’s attorneys filed to maneuver the case from New York state court docket to federal court docket.
The metropolis deserted “Behind the Badge” late final yr, hours earlier than then-Mayor Eric Adams ceded City Hall to Zohran Mamdani, after saying that it had expressed considerations to McGraw in regards to the documentary-style present’s high quality and content material.
Episode “rough cuts” offered to the town by McGraw’s firm, McGraw Media, have been principally “unedited footage” dumps and included materials not allowed underneath McGraw’s manufacturing settlement with the town, comparable to discussions of delicate operations and the identities of undercover officers, crime victims and witnesses, the lawsuit stated.
“Intended to highlight the extraordinary work of the NYPD” with particular behind-the-scenes entry, “Behind the Badge” at instances portrayed the nation’s largest police drive negatively, violating the settlement, the lawsuit stated.
Jordan McGraw and McGraw Media have since “disavowed their obligations” and tried to wrest editorial management over the mission from the town, “risking immediate and irreparable harm” to the town, the lawsuit stated.
Chip Babcock, a lawyer for Jordan McGraw and McGraw Media, stated the lawsuit got here as a shock “as publication of any programming was not imminent.” McGraw Media, he said, “had worked with the city to address the edits requested” and is prepared to proceed to take action. The firm will search to take away the court docket order as quickly as doable, Babcock stated, calling it a presumptively unconstitutional prior restraint.
New York City partnered with McGraw Media on “Behind the Badge” final April, inking a three-year contract a day after a federal decide dismissed federal corruption prices in opposition to Adams. The case went away, partially, as a result of the Justice Department had needed the mayor’s assist with President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.
Last week, WNBC-TV reported that Adams’ marketing campaign paid $500,000 for an additional Jordan McGraw firm, Fairfax Digital, to provide social media adverts.
Adams defended Jordan McGraw’s work on “Behind the Badge,” writing in a social media post on Wednesday that he “brought exceptional talent in revealing the inside story of the dangers NYPD officers face every day.”
“He and his team meticulously addressed every concern raised by City Hall,” Adams wrote. “I’m proud that the work they did tells the real story of our brave police officers. Heroes don’t wear capes, they wear blue uniforms. I understood that. I hope America will get to see that too.”
“Dr. Phil” McGraw, who hosted a “Behind the Badge” phase on his daytime discuss present, made waves final yr when he and a digicam crew embedded with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement brokers for raids in Chicago and Los Angeles.
In a precursor to a present now pitting the town in opposition to his son, he went on a ride-along with the NYPD in 2024 for a phase on his MeritTV present “Dr. Phil Primetime.” In it, he spoke with officers at police headquarters and interviewed two high officers, together with former Deputy Mayor for Public Safety Kaz Daughtry and former Chief of Department John Chell. Dr. Phil’s firm, Merit Street Media, filed for chapter final July.
The “Behind the Badge” contract, a five-page manufacturing settlement signed by Jordan McGraw and Adams’ chief of workers Camille Joseph Varlack, known as for McGraw Media to provide as much as 17 episodes per yr, however gave the town the correct to opt-out by Dec. 31, 2025, the final day of Adams’ time period.
On that date, Varlack advised McGraw in a letter that the town was “no longer able to fulfill its obligations” to the mission. She outlined considerations with the manufacturing course of, together with shoddy modifying and the inclusion of content material that the town had discovered objectionable in “rough cuts.”
Under the manufacturing settlement, the town reserved the correct to nix what it deemed “Non-Usable Content,” together with inaccurate or confidential materials, footage that exposed investigative strategies and something that would compromise public security or public belief.
Among different issues, the lawsuit stated, the present contained footage of an officer inputting a safety code at a police station entrance, discussions of encrypted police communications and the unblurred faces of people that have been arrested by police however who haven’t but been tried or convicted of crimes.
In her letter, Varlack warned McGraw that releasing any such footage would violate the contract.
According to the lawsuit, McGraw Media indicated that it might not settle for any of the town’s edits and that it meant to distribute the flagged materials and was searching for a purchaser to air the present.
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