The New Yorker reporter Jane Meyer takes a look at the creators of Fox’s number one show 24.
Whatever it Takes:

As a foe of political correctness, Surnow seems to be unburdened by the controversy his show has stirred. “24,” he acknowledged, has been criticized as racially insensitive, because it frequently depicts Arab-Americans as terrorists. He said in response, “Our only politics are that terrorists are bad. In some circles, that’s political.” As he led me through the Situation Room set on the Real Time soundstage, I asked him if “24” has plans to use the waterboarding interrogation method, which has been defended by Vice-President Cheney but is considered torture by the U.S. military. Surnow laughed and said, “Yes! But only with bottled water—it’s Hollywood!”

In a more sober tone, he said, “We’ve had all of these torture experts come by recently, and they say, ‘You don’t realize how many people are affected by this. Be careful.’ They say torture doesn’t work. But I don’t believe that. I don’t think it’s honest to say that if someone you love was being held, and you had five minutes to save them, you wouldn’t do it. Tell me, what would you do? If someone had one of my children, or my wife, I would hope I’d do it. There is nothing—nothing—I wouldn’t do.” He went on, “Young interrogators don’t need our show. What the human mind can imagine is so much greater than what we show on TV. No one needs us to tell them what to do. It’s not like somebody goes, ‘Oh, look what they’re doing, I’ll do that.’ Is it?”

Prior to September 2001, Human Rights First noted that about 4 torture scenes were depicted on TV a year. Now there are more than 100, often the torturers are the ‘good guys.’ 24 has had 67 such scenes in it’s five year run.
24 has a weekly audience of 15 million.