After 75 years of Chinese Communist Party rule in Tibet, and as Tibet’s spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, approaches his 90th birthday, Tibet is at a critical juncture. FRONTLINE’s documentary Battle For Tibet goes inside the long-running struggle over the future of the mountainous region. Award-winning producer and director Gesbeen Mohammad joins The FRONTLINE Dispatch to discuss what the film reveals about life in Tibet now, and the uncertain future for Tibetan Buddhism, language and culture. ...
Feb 21, 2025•18 min•Transcript available on Metacast Longtime FRONTLINE correspondent and director Martin Smith returns to talk about his latest documentary, China, the U.S. &the Rise of Xi Jinping. With President Trump vowing larger tariffs in his second term, the documentary examines China’s rise to economic prominence, the life and vision of its longstanding leader, and rising tensions with the United States over issues such as trade and the future of Taiwan. Smith sat down with FRONTLINE Editor-in-Chief and Executive Producer Raney Aronson...
Jan 17, 2025•24 min•Transcript available on Metacast The FRONTLINE Dispatch presents: Breakdown (from Maine Public Radio, The Portland Press Herald, and FRONTLINE). In the aftermath of Lewiston, healing and recovery is taking many forms. One shooting location was renovated and reopened. Another has become a nonprofit that serves some of the area’s most vulnerable residents. One victim’s father now advocates for increased gun control while dozens of others have joined a lawsuit against the federal government. And the shooter’s sister has made it he...
Dec 31, 2024•37 min•Transcript available on Metacast The FRONTLINE Dispatch presents: Breakdown (from Maine Public Radio, The Portland Press Herald, and FRONTLINE). Four members of Maine's deaf community died in Lewiston in October 2023 in what is believed to be the deadliest mass shooting of deaf people in the U.S. The pain of that loss was magnified by the barriers to communication and information deaf survivors and loved ones faced in the immediate aftermath. Episode 5 examines the outsize impact of the Lewiston shooting on those who are deaf a...
Dec 27, 2024•31 min•Transcript available on Metacast The FRONTLINE Dispatch presents: Breakdown (from Maine Public Radio, The Portland Press Herald, and FRONTLINE). When a gunman opened fire in a bowling alley and a bar in Lewiston, Maine, last October, he used an autoloading rifle to fire 54 rounds in less than two minutes. Eighteen were killed and 13 wounded. Although nearly half of Maine households owns a firearm, the state is considered one of the safest in the country. Episode 4 examines the history and politics of guns and hunting in Maine, ...
Dec 20, 2024•39 min•Transcript available on Metacast American Experience is television's most watched history series. We're bringing you an episode of their new podcast, American Experience Presents: The Birth of McCarthyism . Joseph McCarthy grows up on a Wisconsin farm where he learns the value of hard work. After serving in World War II, he capitalizes on his military service to launch a successful Senate campaign. As the Cold War intensifies, McCarthy seizes the opportunity to exploit public fears of communism, framing himself as a defender of...
Dec 18, 2024•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast On December 8, 2024, Syrian rebels stunned the world when they seized Damascus and toppled the government of Bashar al-Assad, more than 13 years into the country’s brutal war. Spearheading the rebel offensive was Abu Muhammad al-Jolani, the leader of the Syrian militant group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) — and a man who has been designated a terrorist by the U.S. since 2013. In 2021, FRONTLINE correspondent Martin Smith became the first Western journalist to interview Jolani. Following Assad’s fal...
Dec 13, 2024•20 min•Transcript available on Metacast The FRONTLINE Dispatch presents: Breakdown (from Maine Public Radio, The Portland Press Herald, and FRONTLINE). How did leaders of the Army Reserve respond to the many, clear warning signs about the Lewiston shooter, a part-time soldier who was in a dangerous, downward spiral? And why didn’t they take further action? The Army has acknowledged some failures but also cast blame elsewhere. In Episode 3, we look at questionable medical decisions, missed communication and lack of follow up by the Arm...
Nov 22, 2024•37 min•Transcript available on Metacast The FRONTLINE Dispatch presents: Breakdown (from Maine Public Radio, The Portland Press Herald, and FRONTLINE). Months before the mass shooting in Lewiston that claimed 18 lives, the gunman’s family and friends were desperately trying to get him help. His mental health was deteriorating. He was experiencing auditory delusions. And there were multiple warnings about his potential for violence, his access to guns and his threats to do harm. Six weeks before the attacks, his best friend warned the ...
Nov 08, 2024•40 min•Transcript available on Metacast In this audio-only version of FRONTLINE's documentary The VP Choice: Vance vs. Walz , FRONTLINE investigates the lives and views of Sen. JD Vance and Gov. Tim Walz as they run for vice president. In a historic election, those who know the candidates best reveal the influences and ideas they would bring to the White House. Stream the documentary on FRONTLINE's website , FRONTLINE's YouTube channel, or the PBS app . Plus, read additional interviews from the making of this documentary as part of th...
Oct 30, 2024•58 min•Transcript available on Metacast What does it mean to be a victim? Or a survivor? In a few brief moments in October 2023, 18 lives were lost in Lewiston — and Maine was changed. For the victims, their loved ones and everyone affected by this tragedy, the ability to heal means understanding what happened. In Episode 1, we meet several people who are trying to recover — from the trauma of losing a loved one, from being critically injured and from being psychologically wounded. And we learn about the fallout for members of the sho...
Oct 25, 2024•37 min•Transcript available on Metacast “Mass shooting.” Two words heard all too often in the United States. There were 656 mass shootings in the U.S in 2023. The one in Lewiston, Maine on October 25, 2023 was the year’s deadliest — and it may have also been the most preventable. For the last year, the newsroom at Maine Public Radio has been on the ground investigating, combing through documents, listening to testimony and interviewing dozens of people. Over six episodes, Breakdown explores the missed opportunities to prevent the shoo...
Oct 25, 2024•2 min•Transcript available on Metacast FRONTLINE investigates the lives and characters of Kamala Harris and Donald Trump as they seek the presidency. In a historic election, those who know the candidates best reveal key moments that shape how they would lead America. Award-winning filmmaker Michael Kirk and his team, who have made five prior installments of The Choice over the past 25 years, sat down with Trump and Harris’ friends, advisors and critics, as well as authors, journalists and political insiders to present deeply reported...
Oct 04, 2024•2 hr 59 min•Transcript available on Metacast In the decades after the Korean war, around 200,000 children born in South Korea were adopted by families in Western countries. As adults, some of those adoptees have returned to South Korea to learn about their origins — only to discover that what they had been told wasn’t true. A new documentary from FRONTLINE and The Associated Press, South Korea’s Adoption Reckoning , details the stories of adoptees and birth parents searching for answers, charts the history of foreign adoption out of South ...
Sep 27, 2024•31 min•Transcript available on Metacast In recent EU elections, far-right parties made major gains across the continent, including Germany's AfD party. FRONTLINE correspondent Evan Williams has been reporting on the rise of the far-right in Germany for years. In 2021, he examined a wave of violence targeting Jews, Muslims, immigrants, and politicians in FRONTLINE’s documentary Germany’s Neo-Nazis and the Far Right . He returned to the country this year to report Germany’s Enemy Within , a deep look at the rise of the far-right AfD par...
Aug 15, 2024•26 min•Transcript available on Metacast For more than 30 years, and over the course of five documentaries, correspondent Bill Moyers and filmmakers Tom Casciato and Kathleen Hughes have returned to Milwaukee again and again, to follow two families: one Black, the Stanleys, and one white, the Neumanns. The newest installment of the project, released this summer, chronicles the families’ struggle to stay afloat in a changing economy across three decades and six presidential administrations. Moyers, Casciato and Hughes join host Raney Ar...
Aug 02, 2024•43 min•Transcript available on Metacast FRONTLINE Film Audio Tracks are FRONTLINE documentaries, in audio form. Stream or download full-length recordings of film audio on Apple Podcasts or FRONTLINE's website . A firestorm has been raging on many American college campuses. Ignited by the devastating October 2023 Hamas attack on Israel and the catastrophic war in Gaza, the outrage deeply divided American campuses and in some places devolved into hate-filled rhetoric and arrests. FRONTLINE and Retro Report have been following the escala...
Jun 28, 2024•57 min•Transcript available on Metacast FRONTLINE Film Audio Tracks are FRONTLINE documentaries, in audio form. Stream or download full-length recordings of film audio on Apple Podcasts or FRONTLINE's website . As the war in Gaza continues with devastating consequences, a major 90-minute documentary offers a sweeping examination of the critical moments leading up to this crisis over the course of the past three decades, and the pivotal role of a central player: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Starting with the Oslo peace ac...
Jun 06, 2024•1 hr 27 min•Transcript available on Metacast When Venezuelan journalist Roberto Deniz began investigating problems with a government food program with his colleagues at the investigative news site Armando.info, he didn’t know that the reaction to his reporting would one day drive him to flee his home country. For the past six years, he has been living and reporting in exile, helping to uncover a corruption scandal reaching from Venezuela to the U.S. and beyond. A Dangerous Assignment: Uncovering Corruption in Maduro’s Venezuela is a new do...
May 24, 2024•23 min•Transcript available on Metacast A new investigation reveals that over nearly a decade, more than 1,000 people died following encounters where police employed tactics known as “less-lethal force,” which ranged from Tasers or physical restraint to forced sedation and other methods meant to stop people without killing them. Police say they are often responding to volatile and sometimes violent situations, and deaths are rare. Drawing on police records, autopsy reports, and footage from cellphones and body-worn cameras, The Associ...
May 09, 2024•19 min•Transcript available on Metacast Since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine began, thousands of Ukrainian children have been taken and held in Russian-controlled territory. A new documentary from FRONTLINE, Children of Ukraine , examines the fate of some of these young Ukrainians, following families and investigators as they search for missing children and collect evidence of alleged abductions. Director Paul Kenyon joined The FRONTLINE Dispatch to talk about dueling Ukrainian and Russian narratives about what’s happened to the ch...
Apr 19, 2024•23 min•Transcript available on Metacast On March 4, 2024, Air National Guard member Jack Teixeira pleaded guilty to charges related to one of the country’s largest leaks of classified information. How did Teixeira manage to go without notice for months as he leaked hundreds of pages of government documents on Discord, the online chat platform popular with teenage gamers? Shane Harris and Sam Oakford were part of a team of Washington Post reporters who set out to investigate, and who partnered with FRONTLINE director Tom Jennings. The ...
Apr 06, 2024•24 min•Transcript available on Metacast Working as a health care reporter in North Carolina, WFAE’s Dana Miller Ervin heard about jail inmates living with serious mental illnesses who cycled for years between jails and psychiatric hospitals. The courts deem them too sick to stand trial – incapable to proceed or ITP – but they often wait months to get the care they need just so their cases can move forward. Ervin detailed her investigation in an 11-part WFAE radio series, “Fractured,” made with support from FRONTLINE’s Local Journalism...
Mar 15, 2024•19 min•Transcript available on Metacast FRONTLINE investigates the roots of the federal criminal case against former President Donald Trump stemming from his 2020 election loss in a special audio version of the new documentary Democracy on Trial. In this final installment, the Jan. 6 Select Committee examines what happened inside the White House on Jan. 6, 2021. What was former President Donald Trump doing for 187 minutes during the violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, when some in the crowd were chanting, “Hang Mike Pence”? What...
Mar 01, 2024•31 min•Transcript available on Metacast FRONTLINE investigates the roots of the federal criminal case against former President Donald Trump stemming from his 2020 election loss in a special audio version of the new documentary Democracy on Trial. In part three, the Jan. 6 Select Committee examines the pressures mounting on the Justice Department and then-Vice President Mike Pence to intervene on Trump’s behalf. Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger recalls a phone call in which the former president tells him, “I just want to f...
Feb 23, 2024•40 min•Transcript available on Metacast FRONTLINE investigates the roots of the federal criminal case against former President Donald Trump stemming from his 2020 election loss in a special audio version of the new documentary Democracy on Trial. In part two, Georgia election official Gabriel Sterling issues a stark warning about the potential for violence. Rusty Bowers, former Arizona House speaker and a lifelong Republican, testifies in front of the Jan. 6 Select Committee about former President Donald Trump’s campaign of pressure o...
Feb 16, 2024•34 min•Transcript available on Metacast With the 2024 presidential race underway, FRONTLINE investigates the roots of the federal criminal case against former President Donald Trump stemming from his 2020 election loss. In this special audio version of Democracy on Trial , veteran political filmmaker Michael Kirk and his team examine the House Jan. 6 committee’s evidence, the historic charges against Trump and the threat to democracy. In this first installment, former President Donald Trump is charged with crimes in office — an unprec...
Feb 09, 2024•45 min•Transcript available on Metacast Democracy on Trial is a 2.5-hour documentary special from FRONTLINE that examines the roots and implications of the unprecedented charges against former president Donald Trump in connection with the efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Drawing on interviews with elected officials, former government lawyers, House Select Committee witnesses and former committee staffers, authors and journalists, the documentary — which is being released in audio form via The FRONTLINE Dispatch podcast in the co...
Feb 09, 2024•19 min•Transcript available on Metacast The May 2022 gun massacre at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas left 19 children and two teachers dead. It was one of the deadliest school shootings in U.S. history. Inside the Uvalde Response , a recent documentary from FRONTLINE, ProPublica and The Texas Tribune, probes the chaotic police response to the shooting and sheds new light on law enforcement’s thoughts and actions as the tragedy unfolded. Among the revelations: Students and teachers at the school had practiced active shooter dri...
Jan 04, 2024•17 min•Transcript available on Metacast Journalists with The Public’s Radio, a station serving Rhode Island and Southeastern Massachusetts, spent two years investigating teen labor in the local seafood processing industry. Their investigation, supported by FRONTLINE’s Local Journalism initiative, reveals flaws in systems designed to protect migrant teens, who’ve arrived at the U.S. southern border in unprecedented numbers in recent years. The investigative team interviewed migrant teens and their families, and uncovered that the U.S. ...
Dec 14, 2023•23 min•Transcript available on Metacast 
