The FRONTLINE Dispatch

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 Army.

Finally, we’ll learn why the shooter’s family believes the military could do more to prevent brain injuries in troops.

To hear the rest of the series, subscribe to Breakdown on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or stay tuned for more episodes on The FRONTLINE Dispatch. 

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 Army Reserve that he might snap and commit a mass shooting.

Episode 2 begins a two-part examination into the numerous opportunities for intervention that could have changed everything.

To hear the rest of the series, subscribe to Breakdown on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or stay tuned for more episodes on The FRONTLINE Dispatch. 

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 the FRONTLINE Transparency Project.

Want to be notified every time a new podcast episode drops? Sign up for The FRONTLINE Dispatch newsletter.

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 shooter’s family, who must also contend with his painful legacy.

This is also a story about the possibility for change — how the lessons of Lewiston might help make us safer.

To hear the rest of the series, subscribe to Breakdown on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or stay tuned for more episodes on The FRONTLINE Dispatch. 

“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 shooting, the role of guns and hunting in Maine’s politics, and the aftermath for shooting victims, some of whom were deaf and hard of hearing.

Breakdown is a new podcast series from Maine Public Radio, the Portland Press Herald, and FRONTLINE.

To hear the rest of the series, subscribe to Breakdown on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or stay tuned for more episodes on The FRONTLINE Dispatch. 

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 narrative arcs of both candidates’ lives, going all the way back to their childhoods.

What emerges in The Choice 2024: Harris vs. Trump is the story of two fighters: One seeking vindication and promising a return to greatness, and the other seeking to move beyond the past and promising a greater future.

Read more than 30 extended interviews from the making of this documentary as part of the FRONTLINE Transparency Project.

Stream the documentary on FRONTLINE's website, FRONTLINE's YouTube Channel, and the PBS App. 

Want to be notified every time a new podcast episode drops? Sign up for The FRONTLINE Dispatch newsletter.

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 Korea, investigates allegations of wrongdoing including falsified papers and switched identities, and reveals the forces that helped to drive an unprecedented international adoption boom.

Together with director Lora Moftah, AP reporters Kim Tong-hyung and Claire Galofaro join The FRONTLINE Dispatch to talk about their investigation.

“Korea constantly tailored its policies and laws to meet the child demands of the West, while it was also trying to reduce the number of mouths to feed,” Kim says. “I think our reporting and the FRONTLINE documentary established that dynamic of supply and demand in a deeper way than the previous reports on the subject.”

Stream South Korea’s Adoption Reckoning on FRONTLINE’s website, FRONTLINE’s YouTube channel, or the PBS App. Read and listen to more accounts from Korean adoptees in the interactive story, “Who Am I, Then?: Stories from South Korea’s Adoption Reckoning.”

Want to be notified every time a new podcast episode drops? Sign up for The FRONTLINE Dispatch newsletter.

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 party and its vision for the country, ahead of state elections in September. 

“What we noticed over the past few years was the increasing power and strength and popularity of the organized far right — what’s called the ‘new right’ in Germany, in politics,” he told FRONTLINE editor-in-chief and executive producer Raney-Aronson Rath. 

Germany’s Enemy Within is streaming on FRONTLINE’s website, FRONTLINE’s YouTube Channel, and the PBS App. 

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 Aronson-Rath to discuss how the project began and evolved over time, documenting moments they’ll never forget, what Two American Families says about America, and the powerful response to the Neumann and Stanley families’ stories over the years from the public media audience. 

“I've watched a thousand films in my life, and I've never seen an audience, felt an audience, that wrote the way they did,” Moyers says of comments from viewers who saw their own lives reflected on screen. “Real people dealing with real issues, practical issues, in their life, and they were getting it from a television show. That's the highest compliment that I think we can expect as journalists, when they feel that we've shown them the world that they experience.” 

You can stream Two American Families: 1991-2024 on FRONTLINE’s website, FRONTLINE’s YouTube channel, and the PBS App.

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 escalating turmoil since the war began — talking to people on all sides of the divide, investigating how universities have responded, how powerful interests joined the fray, and how the conflict over the conflict ultimately spiraled out of control.

From director James Jacoby (Netanyahu, America & the Road to War in Gaza, Amazon Empire, Age of Easy Money) and Retro Report producers Scott Michels and Joseph Hogan, Crisis on Campus examines how the debate over one of the world’s most intractable and complex conflicts has gripped American college campuses.