Nightline focuses on terror investigation in Lodi

When Ted Koppel's familiar face appeared on ABC's Nightline show Wednesday night, it was like any other night for the Monday through Friday show.

But one thing was different: He was talking about Lodi.

"Where's the line between prudence and going too far?" Koppel asked after scenes from Lodi flashed briefly on TV screens across the country. "Tonight, the hunt for unknown soldiers in the war on terror."

The half-hour show focused on Lodi and the federal terror investigation which has landed five local men in jail without bail.

Koppel began Wednesday's show by mentioning the recent bombings in England. One of the suspects was a 22-year-old from Leeds, England -- the same age as Hamid Hayat, a Lodi man accused of lying to agents and denying that he attended a terror training camp.

"How do you safeguard the security of the entire community, be it Leeds, England, Lodi, Calif. or Los Angeles?" Koppel asked the television audience, then wondered aloud if investigators have gone too far.

"We haven't paid this much attention to Lodi since Creedence Clearwater Revival put it on the map about 30 years ago," he continued.

He then turned the show over to correspondent Brian Rooney. As the "Lodi" song played in the background and cars waited for a train passing through the town, Rooney said the trains was a "reminder that Lodi began as a stopping point between better places."

Nightline landed in the city more than a month ago, shortly after the Lodi men were arrested at the beginning of June. News crews from around the country also showed up, but they soon moved on when Michael Jackson was acquitted and a teenager disappeared in Aruba.

Producer Mike Gudgell, however, lingered. He got to know local Muslim leaders, researched other FBI terror investigations across the country and kept up with the Lodi case.

Filming in Lodi

Two weeks ago, Gudgell's work fell into place when two Bay Area film crews arrived and set up their cameras and spotlights at First United Methodist Church in downtown Lodi.

Brian Rooney readies the interviewees, six Pakastani-Americans from Lodi, on June 30 where Nightline was filming at the First United Methodist Church. (Jennifer M. Howell/News-Sentinel)

After crews moved furniture out of the way and set up a make-shift stage, Rooney began interviewing local Muslim residents while the cameras rolled.

"Just face me," he told six people that day. "Look at me and forget about the camera."

With bright lights shining on them, six Pakistani-Americans told Rooney their stories, and what Lodi was like in the days after the terror investigation became public.

Rooney asked if they were surprised, how they felt and if they were scared because FBI agents seemed to be everywhere in town.

"No," Azhar Shah said as one of three cameras zoomed in on him. "We have nothing to hide."

But the investigation hasn't been completely harmless, they said.

Tasleem Ali doesn't feel as comfortable, and she worries that people will discriminate against her because the men in custody are also Pakistani. She's faced that at airports, and it doesn't seem to matter that she's a naturalized American citizen -- who happens to teach English. (When the cameras stopped rolling, she said her students, who know her as "Taz," would probably love to see her on TV.)

Naturally, most of the interviews were cut for length, and some of the six were never directly quoted in Wednesday's show.

Sound technician Dan Edblom, left, and cameraman Greg Stidham, right, remove the microphones after the interview of six Pakistani-Americans on June 30 at the First United Methodist Church in Lodi. The group gathered for an interview with Brian Rooney for ABC's Nightline. Front row, from left: Tasleem Ali, Ashiq Javid, Shujah Khan. Back row, from left: Mohammad Khan, Azhar Shaw and Taj Khan. (Jennifer M. Howell/News-Sentinel)

Some only spoke briefly, but their everyday lives were also captured: Ashiq Javid allowed film crews to see his farm near Lodi and watch as he drove a tractor over the land.

Rooney, who has been with ABC for 17 years, and happens to be the son of "60 Minutes" veteran Andy Rooney, asked questions of each person, sometimes glancing briefly at note cards in his hand.

A spotlight shone on him, and three smaller lights were aimed solely at a plant behind his left shoulder. Countless cords stretched across the floor and taped down so that nobody would trip. At one point, one of the interviewees' cell phones rang, and sound technician Dan Edblom told Rooney to wait until the ringing stopped.

Behind the scenes

Meanwhile, Gudgell stayed behind the scenes, watching the questions and answers. He also watched a monitor, sometimes switching views to see what the three cameras were capturing.

Nightline began with a series of special broadcasts in late 1979 during the Iran hostage crisis. It became a nightly fixture four months later and soon established itself as a hard news program. More than 25 years later, reporters take pride in being able to investigate stories and spend more time than they would on regular TV news shows.

For Gudgell, that meant spending about a month on the Lodi story. It took time, because Lodi residents were leery of the huge satellite trucks and reporters who had suddenly landed in the city they loved to call a "small farming community."

Then, when the film crews wound up their cords and dismantled their spotlights for the last time, Gudgell had more work ahead of him: He had to transcribe every word that had been captured on film, so that editors in New York knew exactly what they had to work with.

From there, it was a struggle to combine all of the footage and research into a half-hour, minus commercial time.

"You try to make what I call 'TV moments,'" Gudgell said after he left Lodi and headed to Los Angeles to put the story together. "It's like bringing paints to a canvas. You have them all there, but you have to put them together."

In addition to Gudgell and Rooney, a host of other people -- ranging from graphics to editing -- worked to get the show on the air.

A fact checker even verified such details as to whether John Beckman really was elected mayor by a margin of 12 votes. (In actuality, Beckman won the City Council race by 21 votes, and he was chosen as mayor by fellow council members, not the public, the fact checker learned.)

Gudgell then waited to see when the show would even air. On Tuesday, he was told it would air next week. But then on Wednesday afternoon, things changed: Lodi would be in the spotlight only hours later.

The show moved from interviews with Hayat's cousin to footage of Beckman walking at the Wine and Visitors Center.

At one point, Rooney himself tried to ask FBI agents why they were tailing Lodi youths, but the vehicles didn't stop.

He questioned whether the FBI has gone too far in following Lodi residents and trying to get them to take lie detector tests.

Ali echoed his concerns, recounting how she teaches her students that they have freedom and rights in America but she now wonders if those rights are being taken away.

Then, just as the show had begun with the song born when a musical group's bus broke down in Lodi several years ago, Rooney ended on the same note.

"Maybe it was the war on terror that got stuck in Lodi this time. This is Brian Rooney, in Lodi."

Contact reporter Layla Bohm at layla@lodinews.com.