The FRONTLINE Dispatch

What makes the Texas Hill Country so vulnerable to flooding? And Matthew and Wendie Childress process earth-shattering news about their daughter, Chloe, a counselor at Camp Mystic.

In this episode of The FRONTLINE Dispatch, an extended interview from the documentary The President vs. the Fed. Director James Jacoby sits down with prominent conservative economist Stephen Moore, a senior economic adviser during Donald Trump’s first administration and an architect of the 2017 Trump tax cuts. Moore offers an insider’s perspective on the friction between the Trump White House and the central bank, presenting a sharp supply-side critique of the Fed's traditional economic models.

Matthew Childress and his wife, Wendie, learn that their daughter, Chloe, an 18-year-old counselor at Camp Mystic, is missing. And residents in Kerr County recount how they survived the grueling initial hours of the flood.

Former IMF Chief Economist Kenneth Rogoff on the importance of Fed independence.

President of the Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank, Neel Kashkari, warns that Fed independence and inflation rates could be directly linked.

FRONTLINE and ProPublica investigate the treatment of protesters and bystanders during the Trump administration’s recent immigration sweeps.

Something to ponder in connection with World Press Freedom Day: If you faced serious punishment for doing your job, would you quit and look for a new one? Or would you continue pursuing your chosen calling?

Releasing in the leadup to World Press Freedom Day, May 3, 2026, this episode of The FRONTLINE Dispatch revisits the reporting at the center of the film The Deal: Trump, Bukele & the Gangs of El Salvador, and explores the risks facing independent journalists.

Among them: The team at the Salvadoran news outlet El Faro, whose work anchors the documentary. In conversation with FRONTLINE Editor-in-Chief and Executive Producer Raney Aronson-Rath, El Faro Editor-in-Chief Carlos Dada reflects on the outlet’s investigation that exposed evidence of negotiations between President Nayib Bukele’s government and gang leaders — and that drew intense backlash.

Dada, now working in exile like much of El Faro’s staff, describes the escalating pressure on his newsroom: accusations from Bukele, surveillance using Pegasus spyware, and sustained harassment of reporters. Despite those challenges, Dada frames the decision to keep reporting as a mission and a mantra: “Silence is not an option.”

The conversation also explores the broader stakes of the film’s reporting — from the history and evolution of gangs like MS-13 to the consequences of Bukele’s sweeping security policies, including mass incarceration under a prolonged state of emergency.

For Dada, the story is not only about his home country, but about the pressure journalists worldwide are under. As governments consolidate power and restrict access to information, he argues, independent reporting becomes both more difficult and more essential — offering verified facts in the face of propaganda and ensuring the public can still scrutinize those in power.

The Deal: Trump, Bukele & the Gangs of El Salvador is available to stream now on FRONTLINE’s website, FRONTLINE’s YouTube channel, the PBS App and PBS Documentaries on Prime.

As the war with Iran intensifies, key questions remain unanswered about Iran’s nuclear capabilities, especially for the man tasked with monitoring them. A conversation with filmmaker and correspondent Sebastian Walker about his recent interview with Rafael Grossi, the head of the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency. Grossi  says inspectors no longer have visibility into Iran’s nuclear program.

In an extended interview from 2008 that we’ve released for the first time, the Rev. Jesse Jackson offered a firsthand account of the political and cultural forces that shaped Barack Obama’s rise.

Filmmakers James Jacoby and Sebastian Walker discuss the dramatic escalation of the conflict between the U.S. and Israel and Iran, and the implications for the region.