''Frontline'' (stylized as FRONTLINE) is an
investigative documentary program distributed by the
Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) in the United States. Episodes are produced at
WGBH WGBH may refer to:
* WGBH Educational Foundation, based in Boston, Massachusetts, United States
** WGBH (FM), a public radio station at Boston, Massachusetts on 89.7 MHz owned by the WGBH Educational Foundation
** WGBH-TV
WGBH-TV (channel 2), ...
in
Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
,
. The series has covered a
variety of domestic and international issues, including terrorism, elections, environmental disasters, and other sociopolitical issues. Since its debut in 1983, ''Frontline'' has aired in the U.S. for 39 seasons, and has won critical acclaim and awards in broadcast journalism. It has produced over 750 documentaries from both in-house and independent filmmakers, 200 of which are available online.
Format
The program debuted in 1983, with NBC anchorwoman
Jessica Savitch
Jessica Beth Savitch (February 1, 1947 – October 23, 1983) was an American television journalist, best known for being the weekend anchor of ''NBC Nightly News'' and daily newsreader for NBC News during the late 1970s and early 1980s. Savi ...
as the show's first host, but Savitch died later after the first-season finale. ''
PBS NewsHour
''PBS NewsHour'' is an American evening television news program broadcast on over 350 PBS
The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virg ...
''s
Judy Woodruff
Judy Carline Woodruff (born November 20, 1946) is an American broadcast journalist who has worked in network, cable, and public television news since 1976. She is the anchor and managing editor of ''PBS NewsHour''. Woodruff has covered every presi ...
took over as host in 1984, and hosted the program for five years, combining her job with a sub-anchor place on ''The MacNeil-Lehrer NewsHour'' when Jim Lehrer was away. In 1990, episodes of ''Frontline'' began airing without a host, and the narrator was left to introduce each episode.
Most ''Frontline'' reports are an hour in length, but some are extended to 90 minutes, 2 hours, or beyond. ''Frontline'' also produces and transmits such occasional specials as ''From Jesus to Christ'', ''
The Farmer's Wife
''The Farmer's Wife'' is a 1928 British silent romantic comedy film directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring Jameson Thomas, Lillian Hall-Davis and Gordon Harker.
It is adapted from a 1916 play of the same name by British novelist, poet an ...
'', and ''
Country Boys''.
Since 1995, ''Frontline'' has been producing deep-content, companion web sites for all of its documentaries. The program publishes extended interview transcripts, in-depth chronologies, original essays, sidebar stories, related links and readings, and source documents including photographs and background research. ''Frontline'' has made many of its documentaries available via streaming Internet video, from its website.
Will Lyman
William Lyman (born May 20, 1948) is an American voice-over artist, actor, and musician. Being known for his polished, resonant voice, Lyman has narrated the PBS series ''Frontline'' since its second season in 1984 and played William Tell in the ...
is the distinctive voice who has narrated most of the installments of the program since its inception in 1983. However, certain reports have been narrated by
David Ogden Stiers
David Allen Ogden Stiers ( ; October 31, 1942 – March 3, 2018) was an American actor and conductor. He appeared in numerous productions on Broadway, and originated the role of Feldman in ''The Magic Show'', in which he appeared for four ...
and
Peter Berkrot
Peter Berkrot is an American voice actor, stage actor, director, producer, and freelance writer who has worked in television, the movie industry, video games, and theatre. .
"The Choice"
Since 1988, ''Frontline'' has also aired "The Choice": a special edition aired during the lead-up to the
presidential election
A presidential election is the election of any head of state whose official title is President.
Elections by country
Albania
The president of Albania is elected by the Assembly of Albania who are elected by the Albanian public.
Chile
The pre ...
every four years, focusing on the
Democratic and
Republican
Republican can refer to:
Political ideology
* An advocate of a republic, a type of government that is not a monarchy or dictatorship, and is usually associated with the rule of law.
** Republicanism, the ideology in support of republics or agains ...
candidates contending for the office of
President of the United States
The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United Stat ...
. An installment aired on October 14, 2008, using a dual-biography format for
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the U ...
and
John McCain
John Sidney McCain III (August 29, 1936 – August 25, 2018) was an American politician and United States Navy officer who served as a United States senator from Arizona from 1987 until his death in 2018. He previously served two terms ...
. The 2008 documentary, produced by
Michael Kirk
Michael Kirk is a documentary filmmaker and partial creator of the PBS show ''Frontline'', where he worked as senior producer until 1987. Kirk founded and currently owns the production company, the Kirk Documentary Group, in Brookline, Massach ...
, generated favorable reviews from ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'', which stated that the program helped viewers "gain perspective" about the "idea-oriented campaign", and ''
Los Angeles Times
The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...
'', which labeled it "refreshingly clear" and "informative".
A subsequent episode aired on October 9, 2012, and featured the same dual biography tracing the lives and careers of incumbent President Barack Obama and his challenger,
Mitt Romney
Willard Mitt Romney (born March 12, 1947) is an American politician, businessman, and lawyer serving as the junior United States senator from Utah since January 2019, succeeding Orrin Hatch. He served as the 70th governor of Massachusetts f ...
. The following episode aired on September 27, 2016, and featured the biography of
Hillary Clinton
Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton ( Rodham; born October 26, 1947) is an American politician, diplomat, and former lawyer who served as the 67th United States Secretary of State for President Barack Obama from 2009 to 2013, as a United States sen ...
and
Donald Trump
Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021.
Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of Pe ...
. "
The Choice 2020
''The Choice 2020: Trump vs. Biden'' is a 2020 television documentary film about the Republican Party (United States), Republican and Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party nominees for the 2020 United States presidential election: Pre ...
" is the most recent installment and aired on September 22, 2020, featuring
Joe Biden and Donald Trump.
Production
The show is produced by the
WGBH Educational Foundation
The WGBH Educational Foundation (also known as GBH since August 2020) is an American public broadcasting group based in Boston, Massachusetts. Established in 1951, it holds the licenses to all of the PBS member stations in Massachusetts, and op ...
, the parent company of
WGBH-TV
WGBH-TV (channel 2), branded on-air as GBH or GBH 2 since 2020, is the primary PBS member television station in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. It is the flagship property of the WGBH Educational Foundation, which also owns Boston's sec ...
in Boston, which is solely responsible for its content. WGBH is the creator of the Documentary Consortium, with another four PBS stations, including
WNET
WNET (channel 13), branded on-air as "Thirteen" (stylized as "THIRTEEN"), is a primary PBS member television station licensed to Newark, New Jersey, United States, serving the New York City area. Owned by The WNET Group (formerly known as the ...
in New York and
KCTS
KCTS-TV (channel 9) is a PBS member television station in Seattle, Washington, United States, owned by Cascade Public Media. Its studios are located at the northeast corner of Seattle Center adjacent to the Space Needle, and its transmitter is ...
in Seattle.
In 2015, the creator and founding executive producer of ''Frontline'', David Fanning, retired after more than 32 years as executive producer of the program, and
Raney Aronson-Rath
Raney Aronson-Rath produces ''Frontline'', PBS's flagship investigative journalism series. She has been internationally recognized for her work to expand the PBS series' original investigative journalism and directs the editorial development and e ...
succeeded him in senior grade. Fanning, however, remains
editor-at-large
An editor-at-large is a journalist who contributes content to a publication. Sometimes such an editor is called a roving reporter or roving editor.
Unlike an editor who works on a publication from day to day and is hands-on, an editor-at-large con ...
of ''Frontline'' as a founding member.
On September 14, 2017, the program launched its first-ever
podcast
A podcast is a program made available in digital format for download over the Internet. For example, an episodic series of digital audio or video files that a user can download to a personal device to listen to at a time of their choosing ...
called ''The Frontline Dispatch''. The podcast is a production of
PBS
The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcasting, public broadcaster and Non-commercial activity, non-commercial, Terrestrial television, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly fu ...
and
WGBH WGBH may refer to:
* WGBH Educational Foundation, based in Boston, Massachusetts, United States
** WGBH (FM), a public radio station at Boston, Massachusetts on 89.7 MHz owned by the WGBH Educational Foundation
** WGBH-TV
WGBH-TV (channel 2), ...
in Boston alongside
PRX.
''Frontline/World''
''Frontline/World'' is a
spin-off program from ''Frontline'', first transmitted on May 23, 2002, which was transmitted four to eight times a year on ''Frontline'' until it was canceled in 2010. It focused on issues from around the globe, and used a "magazine" format, where each hour-long episode typically had three stories that ran about 15 to 20 minutes in length. Its tagline was: ''Stories from a small planet''.
Initially a co-production of
WGBH WGBH may refer to:
* WGBH Educational Foundation, based in Boston, Massachusetts, United States
** WGBH (FM), a public radio station at Boston, Massachusetts on 89.7 MHz owned by the WGBH Educational Foundation
** WGBH-TV
WGBH-TV (channel 2), ...
, Boston and
KQED, San Francisco, ''Frontline/World'' was later based in part at the
University of California Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism, where the program's producers recruited a new generation of reporters and producers to the ''Frontline'' program.
''Frontline/World'' also streamed stories on its website, which won two
Webby awards
The Webby Awards are awards for excellence on the Internet presented annually by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, a judging body composed of over two thousand industry experts and technology innovators. Categories include ...
in 2008 for its original program of online videos called "Rough Cuts". In 2005, the
Overseas Press Club of America
The Overseas Press Club of America (OPC) was founded in 1939 in New York City by a group of foreign correspondents. The wire service reporter Carol Weld was a founding member, as was the war correspondent Peggy Hull. The club seeks to maintain a ...
gave the program its
Edward R. Murrow Award for the best TV coverage of international events, citing producers David Fanning,
Stephen Talbot, Sharon Tiller and Ken Dornstein. The program broke new ground in 2007 by winning two
Emmys
The Emmy Awards, or Emmys, are an extensive range of awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international television industry. A number of annual Emmy Award ceremonies are held throughout the calendar year, each with the ...
; one of these was for a broadcast story, "Saddam's Road to Hell", and the other was for an online video, "Libya: Out of the Shadow".
Critical reception
''Frontline'' has received generally positive reviews from television critics.
David Zurawik of ''
The Baltimore Sun
''The Baltimore Sun'' is the largest general-circulation daily newspaper based in the U.S. state of Maryland and provides coverage of local and regional news, events, issues, people, and industries.
Founded in 1837, it is currently owned by Tr ...
'' wrote that the episode "Inside the Meltdown", was "one of the finest hours of non-fiction TV that I have seen." Vern Gay of ''
Newsday
''Newsday'' is an American daily newspaper that primarily serves Nassau and Suffolk counties on Long Island, although it is also sold throughout the New York metropolitan area. The slogan of the newspaper is "Newsday, Your Eye on LI", and f ...
'' wrote that "The Card Game" episode, "bores down to the hard, cold truth" and is "journalism at its best." Tom Brinkmoeller of ''TV Worth Watching'' called it, "Indispensable." Sean Gregory of ''
Time
Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...
'' wrote about the episode, "
League of Denial
''League of Denial'' is a 2013 book, initially broadcast as a documentary film, about traumatic brain injury in the National Football League (NFL), particularly concussions and chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). The documentary, entitled ''Le ...
", that it was "a first-rate piece of reporting." David Zurawik of ''The Baltimore Sun'' wrote about the episode "The Rise of ISIS", that it was "superb and daring work." Alasdair Wilkins of ''
The A.V. Club
''The A.V. Club'' is an American online newspaper and entertainment website featuring reviews, interviews, and other articles that examine films, music, television, books, games, and other elements of pop-culture media. ''The A.V. Club'' was cre ...
'' wrote, "hardest-hitting show on television."
Margaret Sullivan, the media columnist of ''
The Washington Post
''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...
'' wrote for the episode, "The Choice 2016", "utterly-fair and completely riveting." Vern Gay of ''
Newsday
''Newsday'' is an American daily newspaper that primarily serves Nassau and Suffolk counties on Long Island, although it is also sold throughout the New York metropolitan area. The slogan of the newspaper is "Newsday, Your Eye on LI", and f ...
'' wrote that the show is "authoritative and comprehensive." David Zurawik of ''
The Baltimore Sun
''The Baltimore Sun'' is the largest general-circulation daily newspaper based in the U.S. state of Maryland and provides coverage of local and regional news, events, issues, people, and industries.
Founded in 1837, it is currently owned by Tr ...
'' wrote that the episode "Trump's Showdown", "is as good as long-form, non-fiction television gets." Chris Barton of the ''
Los Angeles Times
The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...
'' wrote for the episode, "The Facebook Dilemma" that ''Frontline'' has a "well-earned reputation for unflinching, in-depth examinations of social issues and current events."
Awards and results
![The crew of FRONTLINE United States of Secrets at the 74th Annual Peabody Awards](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/84/The_crew_of_FRONTLINE_United_States_of_Secrets_at_the_74th_Annual_Peabody_Awards.jpg)
Other ''Frontline'' reports focus on political, social, and criminal justice issues.
Ofra Bikel
Ofra Bikel (born in Israel) is a documentary filmmaker, and television producer. For more than two decades she was a mainstay of the acclaimed PBS series FRONTLINE producing over 25 award-winning documentaries, ranging from foreign affairs to crit ...
, who has been a producer for ''Frontline'' since the first season, has produced a significant number of films on the
criminal justice
Criminal justice is the delivery of justice to those who have been accused of committing crimes. The criminal justice system is a series of government agencies and institutions. Goals include the Rehabilitation (penology), rehabilitation of o ...
system in the United States. The films have focused on issues ranging from post-conviction
DNA testing
Genetic testing, also known as DNA testing, is used to identify changes in DNA sequence or chromosome structure. Genetic testing can also include measuring the results of genetic changes, such as RNA analysis as an output of gene expression, or ...
, the use of
drug snitches and
mandatory minimum sentencing laws, the
plea
In legal terms, a plea is simply an answer to a claim made by someone in a criminal case under common law using the adversarial system. Colloquially, a plea has come to mean the assertion by a defendant at arraignment, or otherwise in response ...
system, and the use of eyewitness testimony. As a result of the films, 13 people have been released from prison.
After the
September 11 attacks
The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercia ...
, the
White House
The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., and has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in 1800. ...
requested a copy of "Hunting Bin Laden". In 1999, ''Frontline'' had produced this in-depth report about
Osama bin Laden
Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden (10 March 1957 – 2 May 2011) was a Saudi-born extremist militant who founded al-Qaeda and served as its leader from 1988 until Killing of Osama bin Laden, his death in 2011. Ideologically a Pan-Islamism ...
and the
terrorist
Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of criminal violence to provoke a state of terror or fear, mostly with the intention to achieve political or religious aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violen ...
network that would come to be known as
Al-Qaeda
Al-Qaeda (; , ) is an Islamic extremism, Islamic extremist organization composed of Salafist jihadists. Its members are mostly composed of Arab, Arabs, but also include other peoples. Al-Qaeda has mounted attacks on civilian and military ta ...
in the wake of the
1998 United States embassy bombings
The 1998 United States embassy bombings were attacks that occurred on August 7, 1998. More than 200 people were killed in nearly simultaneous truck bomb explosions in two East African cities, one at the United States Embassy in Dar es Salaam, ...
. Following the September 11 attacks, ''Frontline'' produced a series of films about Al-Qaeda and the
War on Terrorism
The war on terror, officially the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT), is an ongoing international counterterrorism military campaign initiated by the United States following the September 11 attacks. The main targets of the campaign are militant I ...
. In 2002, the program was awarded the
DuPont-Columbia gold baton for the seven films.
In 2003, ''Frontline'' and ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' joined forces on "A Dangerous Business", an investigation led by reporter
Lowell Bergman
Lowell Bergman (born July 24, 1945) is an American journalist, television producer and professor of journalism. In a career spanning nearly five decades Bergman worked as a producer, a reporter, and then the director of investigative reporting at ...
into the
cast iron
Cast iron is a class of iron–carbon alloys with a carbon content more than 2%. Its usefulness derives from its relatively low melting temperature. The alloy constituents affect its color when fractured: white cast iron has carbide impuriti ...
pipe making industry and worker safety.
OSHA
OSHA or Osha may refer to:
Work
* Occupational Safety and Health Administration, a federal agency of the United States that regulates workplace safety and health
* Occupational Safety and Health Act (United States) of 1970, a federal law in the Un ...
officials credit the documentary and newspaper report with stimulating federal policy change on workplace safety. In 2004, the joint investigation was awarded the
Pulitzer Prize for Public Service
The Pulitzer Prize for Public Service is one of the fourteen American Pulitzer Prizes annually awarded for journalism. It recognizes a distinguished example of meritorious public service by a newspaper or news site through the use of its journalis ...
.
Producer
Michael Kirk
Michael Kirk is a documentary filmmaker and partial creator of the PBS show ''Frontline'', where he worked as senior producer until 1987. Kirk founded and currently owns the production company, the Kirk Documentary Group, in Brookline, Massach ...
's ''Frontline'' documentaries have won multiple awards. These films include "League of Denial: The NFL's Concussion Crisis" (
Peabody Award
The George Foster Peabody Awards (or simply Peabody Awards or the Peabodys) program, named for the American businessman and philanthropist George Peabody, honor the most powerful, enlightening, and invigorating stories in television, radio, and ...
, 2013), "Cheney's Law" (Peabody Award, 2007), "The Lost Year in Iraq" (
Emmy Award
The Emmy Awards, or Emmys, are an extensive range of awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international television industry. A number of annual Emmy Award ceremonies are held throughout the calendar year, each with the ...
, 2006), "The Torture Question" (Emmy Award, 2005), "The Kevorkian File" (Emmy Award), and "Waco: The Inside Story" (Peabody Award).
Director
Martin Smith Martin Smith may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
*Martin Seymour-Smith (1928–1998), British poet, literary critic, biographer and astrologer
*Martin Cruz Smith (born 1942), American writer
* Martin Smith (drummer) (1946–1997), British drummer ...
has produced dozens of films for ''Frontline'', and won both Emmy and Writers Guild of America awards. His 2000 film ''Drug Wars'' was the winner of the Outstanding Background/Analysis of a Single Current Story Emmy and the George Foster Peabody Award. Additionally, ''Separated: Children at the Border'', for which he was writer and correspondent, also won a 2018
Peabody Award
The George Foster Peabody Awards (or simply Peabody Awards or the Peabodys) program, named for the American businessman and philanthropist George Peabody, honor the most powerful, enlightening, and invigorating stories in television, radio, and ...
.
Other notable producers of multiple ''Frontline'' documentaries have included Sherry Jones,
Marian Marzynski
Marian may refer to:
People
* Mari people, a Finno-Ugric ethnic group in Russia
* Marian (given name), a list of people with the given name
* Marian (surname), a list of people so named
Places
* Marian, Iran (disambiguation)
* Marian, Queensla ...
,
Miri Navasky
)
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name =
, subdivision_type1 = State
, subdivision_name1 =
, subdivision_type2 = Division
, subdivision_name2 ...
, Karen O'Connor, June Cross, Neil Docherty,
Stephen Talbot,
Raney Aronson-Rath
Raney Aronson-Rath produces ''Frontline'', PBS's flagship investigative journalism series. She has been internationally recognized for her work to expand the PBS series' original investigative journalism and directs the editorial development and e ...
,
Rachel Dretzin
Rachel () was a Biblical figure, the favorite of Jacob's two wives, and the mother of Joseph and Benjamin, two of the twelve progenitors of the tribes of Israel. Rachel's father was Laban. Her older sister was Leah, Jacob's first wife. Her aun ...
, James Jacoby and Rick Young.
As of July 2016, ''Frontline'' has won a total of 75 Emmy Awards and 18 Peabody Awards. In 2020, ''Frontline'' was also awarded an Institutional Peabody Award.
Episodes
See also
*
Timothy Grucza, an award-winning cinematographer for ''Frontline''
*
Guy Lawson
Guy Lawson (born 26 January 1963) is a Canadian American journalist and true crime writer who has been published in Harper's, '' GQ'', the ''New York Times'', and ''Rolling Stone''.
Early life and career
Lawson was born in Toronto, Canada t ...
, a contributor to ''Frontline''
*
List of programs broadcast by PBS
The following is a list of programs currently or formerly distributed through the American PBS stations and other public television entities.
Current programming
*1 Syndicated to public television stations by the National Educational Telecommuni ...
*''
Wide Angle Wide angle may refer to:
* Wide-angle lens, type of camera lens
* Wide Angle (TV series), ''Wide Angle'' (TV series), television series
* ''Wide Angle'', 1999 album by Hybrid
* ''Wide Angles'', 2003 album by Michael Brecker
* Wide-angle X-ray scatt ...
''
References
External links
*
*
''Frontline/World''Full chronological liston PBS/''Frontline'' site
*
*
{{TCA Award for Outstanding Achievement in News and Information
1983 American television series debuts
1980s American documentary television series
1980s American television news shows
1990s American documentary television series
1990s American television news shows
2000s American documentary television series
2000s American television news shows
2010s American documentary television series
2010s American television news shows
2020s American documentary television series
2020s American television news shows
English-language television shows
Peabody Award-winning television programs
Television series by WGBH