Adam Ciralsky

Ciralsky's Vanity Fair piece, "Harveygeddon: Inside Harvey Weinstein’s Frantic Final Days," was optioned in March 2018 by Ryan Murphy and Fox 21 Television Studios.

In 2019, it was announced that Ciralsky's Vanity Fair piece, "Tycoon, Contractor, Soldier, Spy," will serve as the basis for the script of the forthcoming film Prince of War about the controversial life of Erik Prince, an ex-Navy SEAL and founder of the private military contracting firm Blackwater.

In November 2014, a motion picture adaptation of Ciralsky's “Tycoon, Contractor, Soldier, Spy” was announced, with Ciralsky, Nicolas Chartier, and Craig Flores as producers. Two months later, Stuart Beattie signed on to write the script.

Ciralsky has won many of journalism's highest honors including three Emmys, a Peabody Award for Significant & Meritorious Achievement in Broadcasting & Cable, a Polk Award for Outstanding Television Reporting, an Alfred I. duPont–Columbia University Award for Breaking News and Sustained Coverage, and a Loeb Award for Distinguished Business and Financial Journalism and a Barone Award for Excellence in National Affairs/Public Policy Journalism.

While under investigation by the CEG, Ciralsky was subjected to a polygraph test which – one of the Agency's own documents suggests – was rigged: "[CIA Director] Tenet says this guy is out of here because of his lack of candor…subject is scheduled for a poly…Once that's over, it looks like we'll be waving goodbye to our friend." Ciralsky subsequently passed a polygraph test administered by the former chief of the FBI polygraph lab.

The film's world premiere took place at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2013. It was also shown that year at film festivals in Vancouver, Bergen and Austin, where it was nominated for the award for Best Documentary Feature.

Ciralsky's 2010 deposition of CIA director George Tenet is considered unprecedented. Victoria Toensing, the former chief counsel for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said that she had not heard of any such thing happening before. “Usually the agency tries to circle the wagons and protect the director from ever having to provide facts,” she said, “The fact that he was privy to the gross violations that occurred here is what is significant.”

Ciralsky became a contributing writer at Vanity Fair in 2009, later joining the masthead as contributing editor in 2018.

In 2008, Ciralsky started his own production company, Physics Package Productions, which in 2008 became P3 Media. In addition to developing original concepts for film and television, the company adapts Ciralsky's original reporting and investigative work for the screen. In 2018, Ciralsky's P3 Media signed a first-look deal with ABC Studios for scripted content.

In 2004, Ciralsky joined NBC News where his work covering the 2006 Lebanon War earned him his first Emmy. His multi-part series entitled Trophy, about U.S. Army efforts to scuttle an Active Protection System designed to shoot down rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs), earned Ciralsky his second Emmy as well as the George Polk Award for special achievement in journalism; specifically for “investigative and enterprise work that is original, requires digging and resourcefulness, and brings results.” The Trophy series also went on to win the Gerald Loeb Award for Distinguished Business and Financial Journalism in the Television Daily category and the Barone Award from the Radio and Television Correspondent Association (RTCA) for excellence in Washington-based reporting on national affairs and public policy.

Following his departure from the CIA in December 1999, Ciralsky was hired by the CBS Newsmagazine 60 Minutes. His first story, "Death by Denial", which dealt with the scourge of HIV/AIDS in Africa, won a Peabody Award for Significant & Meritorious Achievement in Broadcasting & Cable. While he was at 60 Minutes, Ciralsky's stories were nominated for three Emmy Awards. During that time, he also helped track down and interview the only participant in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing to remain at large.

In July 1997, Richard Clarke, then President Clinton's Counter-Terrorism Czar, offered Ciralsky a rotational position at the National Security Council (NSC). However, the CIA's Counterespionage Group (CEG) blocked the rotation citing concerns about Ciralsky's “Jewish roots”. Ciralsky fought the allegations and, in so doing, unearthed many documents, including, an incendiary memorandum from a top CIA official: " I'd like to know if he admits his family has actual contacts with right wing politicians like Prime Minister Netanyahu. If not contacts, then maybe his family has donated money to Israeli government causes. From my experience with rich Jewish friends from college, I would fully expect Adam’s wealthy daddy to support Israeli political or social causes in some form or other, perhaps though the United Jewish Appeal.”

Ciralsky grew up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and attended University School of Milwaukee before attending George Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs in Washington, DC from which he graduated magna cum laude with a B.A. in International Affairs. His work on weapons proliferation issues landed him a research scholarship in Arms Control, Disarmament and International Security at the University of Illinois where, in 1996, he received his Juris Doctor (J.D.).

The show's premiere focused on Mullah Krekar, an Iraqi refugee living in Norway since 1991 who is also one of the founders and early leaders of the Ansar al-Islam organization, an Islamist group considered a terrorist organization by U.N. authorities as well as by the European Union. In 2003, the deportation of Krekar from Norway to Iraq was ordered, but the order was suspended due to concerns about the human rights situation in Iraq, particularly the risk that Krekar would be tortured or executed.

Adam Ciralsky (born September 22, 1971) is an award-winning American journalist, television and film producer and attorney. Many of his original reports have been optioned and adapted for film and television through his production company P3 Media. In 2018, Ciralsky's P3 Media signed a first-look deal with ABC Studios for scripted content.