The FRONTLINE Dispatch

Director and correspondent Martin Smith returns to discuss his latest FRONTLINE documentary, ‘China, the U.S. & the Rise of Xi Jinping.’

The FRONTLINE Dispatch presents: Breakdown (from Maine Public Radio, The Portland Press Herald, and FRONTLINE).

The FRONTLINE Dispatch presents: Breakdown (from Maine Public Radio, The Portland Press Herald, and FRONTLINE).

The FRONTLINE Dispatch Presents: Breakdown (from Maine Public Radio, the Portland Press Herald, and FRONTLINE)

From our colleagues at GBH, a new podcast series — "American Experience Presents."

Correspondent Martin Smith on the fall of Assad, what we know about Syrian rebel leader Abu Muhammad al-Jolani, and what’s next for Syria.

The FRONTLINE Dispatch presents: Breakdown, Episode 3 (from Maine Public Radio, The Portland Press Herald, and FRONTLINE).

The FRONTLINE Dispatch presents: 'Breakdown' (from Maine Public Radio, The Portland Press Herald, and FRONTLINE)

Listen to an audio-only version of FRONTLINE's documentary 'The VP Choice: Vance vs. Walz'

The FRONTLINE Dispatch presents: 'Breakdown' (from Maine Public Radio, The Portland Press Herald, and FRONTLINE)

The FRONTLINE Dispatch presents: a new series from Maine Public Radio, The Portland Press Herald, and FRONTLINE.

Listen to an audio-only version of FRONTLINE's documentary 'The Choice 2024: Harris vs. Trump'

Kim Tong-hyung and Claire Galofaro of The Associated Press and filmmaker Lora Moftah discuss ‘South Korea’s Adoption Reckoning.’

Correspondent Evan Williams talks about the rise of the far-right AfD party in Germany, the threat of violent extremism, and the recent riots in the UK.

Bill Moyers, Tom Casciato and Kathleen Hughes, the filmmakers behind ‘Two American Families: 1991-2024,’ talk about profiling two families in America’s Rust Belt over multiple decades and economic cycles.

Listen to full-length audio of FRONTLINE's recently updated documentary 'Netanyahu, America, & the Road to War in Gaza.'

Venezuelan journalist Roberto Deniz and director Juan Ravell talk about ‘A Dangerous Assignment.’

What a new investigation reveals about more than 1,000 deaths that occurred after encounters with police.

Filmmaker Paul Kenyon discusses ‘Children of Ukraine,’ an investigation into how thousands of Ukrainian children have been taken and held in Russian-controlled territory.

The journalists behind ‘The Discord Leaks’ on how a young Air National Guard member leaked classified documents online for months without detection — and the implications.

Investigating long waits for mental health care by defendants in North Carolina deemed too sick to stand trial.

Listen to the final installment of The FRONTLINE Dispatch’s audio-only version of the new documentary “Democracy on Trial.”

Listen to part three of The FRONTLINE Dispatch’s audio-only version of the documentary “Democracy on Trial.”

Listen to part two of The FRONTLINE Dispatch’s audio-only version of the new documentary “Democracy on Trial.”

The FRONTLINE Dispatch presents an audio-only version of the recent documentary “Democracy on Trial.” Listen to part one now.

Veteran FRONTLINE filmmaker Michael Kirk on the roots of the unprecedented federal criminal charges against former President Donald Trump.

Journalists behind “Inside the Uvalde Response” discuss how hundreds of hours of body cam footage and officer interviews reveal a chaotic police response to the shooting at Robb Elementary in Uvalde, TX.

An investigation into underage migrant teen labor at New England seafood processing plants reveals flaws in the systems designed to protect them.

Director Mstyslav Chernov and FRONTLINE editor Michelle Mizner discuss the making of “20 Days in Mariupol,” the award-winning new documentary from FRONTLINE and the AP.

From GBH News, The FRONTLINE Dispatch presents The Big Dig, Part 1: "We Were Wrong."

As this year’s baseball season ends, reporter Ben Reiter looks back on the lingering impact of the 2017 Houston Astros cheating scandal.

‘Putin vs. the Press’ director Patrick Forbes, on chronicling the story of embattled Russian journalist and Nobel Prize winner Dmitry Muratov.

Examining the impact of Florida’s “two-strikes” sentencing law, with filmmaker Ursula Liang and reporter Cary Aspinwall.

The Labor Department proposed a new rule that could limit coal miners’ exposure to a toxic dust called silica. We revisit the stories of miners whose lives were changed by black lung disease.

Behind the scenes of the award-winning documentary “20 Days in Mariupol,” with director Mstyslav Chernov and FRONTLINE editor Michelle Mizner.

In “America’s Dangerous Trucks”, FRONTLINE and ProPublica investigate deadly accidents involving trucks, and how regulators failed to act for decades.

Maria Hinojosa, host of Latino USA and founder of Futuro Media, talks about examining the aftermath of the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas.

Listen to the full-length audio from Age of Easy Money, FRONTLINE’s recent investigation into the Federal Reserve’s “easy money” policies.

Martin Smith and Marcela Gaviria on the end of the war in Afghanistan, and the return of harsh restrictions for women.

Martin Smith and Marcela Gaviria discuss “America and the Taliban” and look back on two decades of reporting in Afghanistan.

Bank failures, high inflation, rising interest rates — how did we get here? Correspondent James Jacoby joins the FRONTLINE Dispatch to talk about his timely documentary, Age of Easy Money, which examines the power and impact of the Federal Reserve.

A year after Russia began its assault on Ukraine, filmmakers Mani Benchelah and Patrick Tombola discuss their reporting on the battle for Kharkiv, and the impact of the war on civilians and first responders caught in the fight.

Longtime FRONTLINE correspondent and ProPublica reporter A.C. Thompson discusses antisemitism, the challenges facing journalists who cover right-wing extremism, and the evolution of his work with FRONTLINE.

How FRONTLINE and journalists around the world investigated the powerful spyware Pegasus. A conversation with journalists Laurent Richard and Sandrine Rigaud of Forbidden Stories.

Director Gesbeen Mohammad joins The FRONTLINE Dispatch to talk about the Russian activists and journalists who refuse to stay silent on the war in Ukraine.

Inside FRONTLINE and The Associated Press's investigation of potential Russian war crimes in Ukraine with reporter Erika Kinetz.

How did a federal ban on evictions and billions of dollars in rental assistance play out during the economic turmoil of the pandemic? A conversation with “Facing Eviction” filmmaker Bonnie Bertram.

Veteran FRONTLINE filmmaker Michael Kirk talks about the new documentary “Lies, Politics and Democracy.”

The FRONTLINE Dispatch Presents: The Disconnect. In the first episode of Season 2 of the Texas Newsroom and KUT’s podcast all about the Texas blackout of February 2021, host Mose Buchele and colleagues examine the blackout’s impact on one Texas family, and the accuracy of the state’s official death count.

FRONTLINE’s Local Journalism Initiative partner, the Texas Newsroom, and Austin public radio station KUT examine the aftermath of the Texas blackout of February 2021.

FRONTLINE correspondent Ramita Navai talks about investigating the Taliban’s crackdown on women for the new documentary Afghanistan Undercover.

Former federal Judge J. Michael Luttig and U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) talk about the time leading up to Jan. 6 and the importance of the House select committee hearings.

Coming soon from FRONTLINE's partners in the Local Journalism Initiative, KUT/KUTX Studios, season two of The Disconnect: Power, Politics and the Texas Blackout.

With the inauguration of Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. as the next president of the Philippines, revisit a conversation with Maria Ressa: journalist, Nobel Peace Prize winner, founder of the independent Philippine news site Rappler and subject of FRONTLINE's 2021 documentary "A Thousand Cuts."

"American Reckoning," a feature-length documentary from FRONTLINE and Retro Report, traces the life and death of Wharlest Jackson Sr., the history of Black resistance in his hometown and his family’s decades-long struggle for justice.

Since the murder of George Floyd two years ago, FRONTLINE's local journalism partner the Star Tribune has covered one of the most pivotal events in the history of race and policing in America. Editor Suki Dardarian joins us from Minneapolis to discuss the newsroom’s Pulitzer-winning reporting and “Police on Trial,” the new documentary from FRONTLINE and the Star Tribune.

A Pulitzer-winning investigation reveals that hundreds of workers at the Gopher Resource lead smelting plant in Florida were exposed to dangerous levels of lead in the air.

The fossil fuel industry cast doubt on climate change for decades, even as the scientific evidence grew stronger and the warnings more dire. Investigative reporter Russell Gold joins executive producer Raney Aronson-Rath to discuss FRONTLINE’s three-part series “The Power of Big Oil.”

How did a stolen election myth make its way to the center of American politics? A.C. Thompson, correspondent, and Samuel Black, director and producer of the FRONTLINE and ProPublica documentary “Plot to Overturn the Election,” discuss how a handful of people have had an outsized impact on the current U.S. crisis of democratic legitimacy.

Julia Ioffe, an American journalist who was born in Russia, discusses Vladimir Putin’s brutal invasion of Ukraine and what brought him, and the world, to this tipping point. "Because he is backed into a corner, he is the most dangerous he has ever been," Ioffe tells FRONTLINE in this excerpt of an interview with producer Mike Wiser for the documentary “Putin's Road to War,” premiering Tuesday, March 15, on PBS. Want to be notified every time a new FRONTLINE podcast episode drops? Sign up for The FRONTLINE Dispatch newsletter.

Journalist Maria Ressa, a 2021 Nobel Peace Prize winner and the subject of the documentary "A Thousand Cuts," joined director Ramona S. Diaz and FRONTLINE’s executive producer, Raney Aronson-Rath, for a special conversation prior to the Nobel ceremony.

How does the world of secret finance enable some of the globe’s richest and most powerful people to shield their deals and assets?

As the U.S. Federal Reserve and its chair, Jerome Powell, confront concerns over inflation and the impact of the Fed’s pandemic-era policies, we take a deep dive into the country’s central bank, which financial journalist Dion Rabouin calls “the most powerful and least understood institution in the country.”

What did Boeing know about the potential for disaster with its 737 Max passenger jet, and when did the company know it? Tom Jennings, director of the FRONTLINE/New York Times documentary Boeing’s Fatal Flaw, and Times reporter David Gelles detail what their findings reveal about the leadup to the two 737 Max plane crashes in 2018 and 2019 that killed 346 people.

Dan Reed (“Leaving Neverland”) discusses his new FRONTLINE documentary, “In the Shadow of 9/11,” the story of how seven Black men from Miami were accused of planning an Al Qaeda plot to blow up American buildings.

As the nation marks the 20th anniversary of Sept. 11, the legacy of the terror attacks and their aftermath continues to unfold, from insurrection at the U.S. Capitol to the resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan.

What prompted the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate over 150 unsolved civil rights era killings? And what does justice look like for the families of the victims?

As Derek Chauvin’s murder trial nears its end and Minnesota roils over the killing of Daunte Wright, calls for police accountability continue. 

For years, hundreds of workers at the Gopher Resource lead smelting plant in Florida were exposed to dangerous levels of lead in the air.

The Biden administration is set to begin as America copes with a chaotic start to the new year: from an insurrection to a second impeachment of President Trump, all while the COVID-19 death toll reaches new heights. 

A violent mob of President Donald Trump's supporters invaded the U.S. Capitol on January 6, as Congress met to certify Joe Biden as the 46th president of the United States.

How did an American family end up in the heart of the ISIS caliphate?

How did an American family end up in the heart of the ISIS caliphate?

How did an American family end up in the heart of the ISIS caliphate?

When the pandemic hit, Dr. Blair Woodbury picked up the phone. He called his old friend, filmmaker Mike Shum, and urged him to get out and start recording the first draft of history. 

As COVID swept the U.S., why did hospitals face deadly shortages of PPE and other medical supplies?

From the PBS science series NOVA, a biweekly podcast digging into the science behind the headlines.

In this special audio presentation, FRONTLINE shares a podcast version of The Choice 2020: Trump vs. Biden, a new documentary interweaving investigative biographies of the two main-party presidential candidates, Donald Trump and Joe Biden, with a focus on how they have responded in moments of political and personal crisis. 

Before America votes, what can Biden and Trump’s responses to past crises — both personal and political — tell us about how they might lead the United States through a time of national turbulence? 

As part of FRONTLINE’s Transparency Project, all this week we’re publishing key interviews conducted as part of the reporting for The Choice 2020: Trump vs. Biden, a two-hour documentary special about the major-party political candidates.

As part of FRONTLINE’s Transparency Project, all this week we’re publishing key interviews conducted as part of the reporting for The Choice 2020: Trump vs. Biden, a two-hour documentary special about the major-party political candidates.

As part of FRONTLINE’s Transparency Project, all this week we’re publishing key interviews conducted as part of the reporting for The Choice 2020: Trump vs. Biden, a two-hour documentary special about the major-party political candidates.

As part of FRONTLINE’s Transparency Project, all this week we’re publishing key interviews conducted as part of the reporting for The Choice 2020: Trump vs. Biden, a two-hour documentary special about the major-party political candidates.

As part of FRONTLINE’s Transparency Project, all this week we’re publishing key interviews conducted as part of the reporting for The Choice 2020: Trump vs. Biden, a two-hour documentary special about the major-party political candidates.

As part of Frontline’s Transparency Project, all this week we’re publishing key interviews conducted as part of the reporting for The Choice 2020, a two-hour documentary special about the major-party political candidates.

How the coronavirus separated a mother from her newborn baby, and the schoolteacher who stepped in to help the family in their time of need.

They’ve been keeping America fed throughout the pandemic — and they say they’ve had to choose between their health and their jobs.

How a drug company made millions pushing an opioid painkiller up to 100x stronger than heroin, as many on Wall Street looked the other way.

Days before an expected verdict in her trial, Philippine journalist Maria Ressa speaks out about reporting on President Rodrigo Duterte’s brutal drug war — and then becoming a high-profile target of his government’s crackdown on the press. 

As streets across America erupt into clashes over racism during the coronavirus pandemic, Jelani Cobb of The New Yorker examines a connection between George Floyd's death and the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 deaths among African Americans: "the thing that ties them together is empirical evidence of a phenomenon that had been dismissed otherwise.” 

As COVID-19 has spread, so, too, have misinformation and conspiracy theories about the virus — amplified by figures like Alex Jones

In the Bronx, as the coronavirus is disproportionately killing black and Latino people, COVID-19 is swelling the ranks of the dead — and also upending how loved ones grieve.

As COVID-19 ran rampant through the adult care facility, family members struggled to learn the truth.

Native American communities were already dealing with underfunded health services. Then the coronavirus outbreak began.

What the feud between President Trump and Washington Gov. Inslee reveals about federal-state tensions in the coronavirus fight. 

Inside the Trump administration’s coronavirus response — and missed opportunities to contain COVID-19.

As schools close to help stem the spread of COVID-19, what happens to kids who rely on school meals to eat?

To combat COVID-19, Ohio has a “stay at home” order — but what does that mean for families without homes?

A reporter’s emotional journey back to her homeland in Italy, now the global epicenter of the COVID-19 outbreak.

Lessons learned from Seattle — an epicenter of the COVID-19 outbreak.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs has led to the deaths of thousands of alleged drug users and dealers. Yet he remains hugely popular. We investigate his rise to power.

Across the country, hundreds of people are in prison even though they weren’t convicted of the alleged acts that landed them there. Sometimes, they’re held for decades. Today, the story of one such man.

Millions of Americans can’t afford rent and only a quarter of those who need government help get it. What happens to everyone else? For many, it means they live in squalor. But figuring out who’s responsible is harder than you think. In this episode of The FRONTLINE Dispatch, NPR correspondent Laura Sullivan heads to Dallas where the city, low income residents and a prominent landlord sometimes described as a slumlord, become the moving pieces in a century-and-a-half old problem. This episode was done in collaboration with NPR.

A 15-year-old from El Salvador waits for his chance to cross the US border and ask for asylum. He’s trying to reach his mother on the other side.

In Appalachia, more than 2,000 coal miners are suffering from advanced black lung disease, caused by toxic dust in the mines. Reporter Howard Berkes spoke with dozens of miners with varying stages of the disease about how it has irrevocably changed their lives.

In December 2017, after serving 30 years of his life sentence, Kempis Songster left Graterford Prison on lifetime parole. A lot has happened since then. He now lives in Philadelphia. He’s working, married and became a father.  One year after Reporter Samantha Broun and Kempis Songster stopped recording their conversations for the Living with Murder series, they return with this series’ update on what Kempis’ life looks like today. This story was produced in collaboration with the public radio website Transom.org.

At 15, after committing a brutal murder, Kempis Songster was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. But now he has a chance to be free, thanks to a series of recent Supreme Court rulings that found the sentences of thousands of inmates who, like Songster, committed their crimes as juveniles, to be unconstitutional. This episode produced in collaboration with Transom.org.

At 15, after committing a brutal murder, Kempis Songster was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. But now he has a chance to be free, thanks to a series of recent Supreme Court rulings that found the sentences of thousands of inmates who, like Songster, committed their crimes as juveniles, to be unconstitutional. This is Part Two of his story. This episode was a collaboration with Transom.org.

In this special episode for kids, FRONTLINE follows a day in the life of Muzamil, a 12-year-old Somali boy growing up Kenya’s Dadaab Refugee Camp. Producer Bianca Giaever and Reporter Roopa Gogineni bring him questions from American kids about what it’s like growing up in a refugee camp. Are there dentists? A fire department? What is your dreamland? Muzamil takes us through his daily life, answering questions from American kids along the way.

Scott Gaines was a first responder on 9/11. When he retired a couple months later, he thought he’d escaped the aftermath unscathed. This time on The FRONTLINE Dispatch, a story about the lasting impacts of 9/11 – told by his daughter, reporter Amy Gaines.

A young black man was dead. A young white cop was quickly fired. If that sounds surprising, you don’t know the half of it. This is a shocking story about police and the use of lethal force. Just not the one you might expect.

The second season of The FRONTLINE Dispatch launches on November 29th.

At 15, after committing a brutal murder, Kempis Songster was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. But now he has a chance to be free, thanks to a series of recent Supreme Court rulings that found the sentences of thousands of inmates who, like Songster, committed their crimes as juveniles, to be unconstitutional. This is Part Two of his story. It was produced by Samantha Broun and Jay Allison.

At 15, after committing a brutal murder, Kempis Songster was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. But now he has a chance to be free, thanks to a series of recent Supreme Court rulings that found the sentences of thousands of inmates who, like Songster, committed their crimes as juveniles, to be unconstitutional. This is Part One of his story. It was produced by Samantha Broun and Jay Allison.

There are more than 2,000 people in prisons around the country who were convicted of murder as juveniles and sentenced to life without the possibility of parole. But recent Supreme Court decisions have found these sentences unconstitutional and set in motion a process for re-evaluating these “juvenile lifers.” To close out the first season of The FRONTLINE Dispatch, we have three stories about juvenile lifers. This first is the story of a violent crime committed by a juvenile lifer whose second chance went horribly wrong. It is an intensely personal documentary, but it carries far-reaching implications that extend into public life and into the heart of our political and correctional systems.This piece was produced by Samantha Broun and Jay Allison. It was originally made in 2016 for the public radio website Transom.org. Listen to it here: https://transom.org/2016/a-life-sentence-victims-offenders-justice-and-my-mother/. We are presenting an update to a version that aired later that year on This American Life: https://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/604/20-years-later. Next on The FRONTLINE Dispatch: the mini-series continues with two more stories about juvenile life without parole from producers Samantha Broun and Jay Allison.

Children describing the sounds that bombs make as they fall. Streets covered with rotting garbage. Doctors and nurses who have gone months without pay, at hospitals struggling to care for an influx of cholera patients and malnourished infants. In Yemen, two-plus years of airstrikes by a coalition being led by Saudi Arabia and receiving weapons and tactical assistance from the United States, have led to what the United Nations has called the “largest humanitarian crisis” in the world. FRONTLINE filmmaker Martin Smith and his team witnessed chaos on a rare trip inside the country, a peek inside a largely invisible war. Few foreign journalists are given permission to enter Yemen. “People are not seeing what’s going on. We’re talking thousands of civilian dead,” said Smith. “Notes from an Invisible War” was reported by Martin Smith and Sara Obeidat and produced for the podcast by Michelle Mizner and Sophie McKibben. The reporting for this story was done as part of an upcoming FRONTLINE special on the rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Airing in 2018, the documentary will trace the roots of the Sunni-Shia divide, and explore how a proxy war between the two countries is devastating the Middle East. The FRONTLINE Dispatch is made possible by the Abrams Foundation Journalism Initiative. Major support for this story was provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting with additional support from the Henry Luce Foundation. For more in-depth reporting on the crisis in Yemen – visit pbs.org/frontline.

Millions of Americans can’t afford rent and only a quarter of those who need government help get it. What happens to everyone else? For many, it means they live in squalor. But figuring out who’s responsible is harder than you think. In this episode of the FRONTLINE DISPATCH, NPR correspondent Laura Sullivan heads to Dallas where the city, low income residents and a prominent landlord sometimes described as a slumlord, become the moving pieces in a century-and-a-half old problem. This episode was done in collaboration with NPR.

In 2016, a 5.0 magnitude earthquake hit the small town of Cushing, Oklahoma, severely damaging the town. Cushing isn’t the type of place that’s supposed to have such a problem with earthquakes. Until about 2009, they only had one or two a year. But in the last few years, tied to an increased use of wastewater disposal (a by-product of the oil industry) the number of earthquakes has risen dramatically, and now Cushing, along with much of Oklahoma, shakes hundreds of times a year. * Cushing is a major hub of American oil — known as “the pipeline crossroads of the world,” the Keystone XL and 13 other major pipelines run beneath it, and above ground, the town stores tens of millions of barrels of oil in its tank farms. Oil is the town’s economic lifeblood, and so the big quake, and the question of who to hold responsible for it, caused real division between neighbors. In this episode of The FRONTLINE Dispatch, reporter Sandy Tolan goes to Cushing to find out how the earthquakes impact a town built on oil. This story was produced by Jamie York and Sophie McKibben. Find us on the web at pbs.org/frontlinedispatch

In the summer after 9th grade, 14-year-old Heather discovered she was pregnant. Her boyfriend Aaron was 24. At the time, marriage seemed like it could be a solution to their problems — and maybe a way to keep Aaron out of jail.  In this episode of the FRONTLINE Dispatch, reporter Anjali Tsui and producer Sophie McKibben go inside a battle playing out over child marriage in America. Anjali Tsui is an Abrams Journalism Fellow through the FRONTLINE/Columbia Journalism School Fellowships.  For more on child marriage in America – visit pbs.org/frontlinedispatch.

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