The FRONTLINE Dispatch FRONTLINE PBS, WGBH

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 accords and continuing through the Oct. 7 Hamas attack and the ongoing war in Gaza, the documentary draws on years of reporting and is an incisive look at the long history of failed peace efforts and violent conflict in the region — and the increasing tensions between Israel and its ally, the U.S., over the war’s catastrophic toll and what comes next.This documentary originally aired December 19, 2023. An updated version was released May 28, 2024, and is now streaming online. 

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 documentary from FRONTLINE and Armando.info that follows Deniz as he investigates the controversial businessman Alex Saab and his connections to the government of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. Together with Juan Ravell, the film’s director, Deniz joins Raney Aronson-Rath to talk about Saab’s indictment and subsequent release from U.S. custody, and the consequences of reporting on corruption in Maduro’s Venezuela. Stream A Dangerous Assignment on FRONTLINE’s website, FRONTLINE’s YouTube channel, or the PBS App.Want to be notified every time a new podcast episode drops? Sign up for The FRONTLINE Dispatch newsletter.

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 Associated Press, in collaboration with FRONTLINE and the Howard Centers for Investigative Journalism, compiled a database that serves as the most extensive accounting ever of deaths following such police encounters. Serginho Roosblad, director and producer of the joint documentary Documenting Police Use of Force, and Justin Pritchard, a reporter and editor with the AP, join host Raney Aronson-Rath on The FRONTLINE Dispatch to discuss their findings. The investigation also includes an interactive story and database.  Stream Documenting Police Use of Force on FRONTLINE’s website, FRONTLINE’s YouTube channel, or the PBS App.Want to be notified every time a new podcast episode drops? Sign up for The FRONTLINE Dispatch newsletter.

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 children, interviewing young survivors of war and trauma, and ongoing efforts to reunite Ukrainian families. You can watch Children of Ukraine 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.

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 FRONTLINE/Washington Post documentary The Discord Leaks investigates Teixeira’s online world, his massive leak of national security secrets and the role of platforms like Discord. The documentary also raises tough questions about the military’s vetting of applicants’ online behavior. Jennings, Harris and Oakford joined host Raney Aronson-Rath to talk about recent developments related to national security leaks, Teixeira’s case and what the documentary reveals.“What Jack's case shows is this huge vulnerability at the heart of the intelligence apparatus, of an insufficient system for vetting people, and a system that's built so that people can get access to secrets and share them with practically whomever they want,” Harris told Aronson-Rath. “And I think that is going to be a major challenge for the military and the intelligence agencies going forward.”You can watch The Discord Leaks on FRONTLINE’s website, the FRONTLINE YouTube Channel, and the PBS App. Read The Washington Post’s related reporting at washingtonpost.com.Want to be notified every time a new podcast episode drops? Sign up for The FRONTLINE Dispatch newsletter.

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 Initiative. Now, a documentary by the same name follows Ervin as she chronicles the plight of ITP inmates. Fractured is directed by Débora Souza Silva, a 2023 recipient of the FRONTLINE/Firelight Media Investigative Journalism Fellowship.

Ervin and Silva joined Raney Aronson-Rath on The FRONTLINE Dispatch to discuss making the film; how long waits for care affect these defendants as well as others in the criminal justice system; and potential solutions to the problem.

The “Fractured” documentary is streaming on FRONTLINE’s website, YouTube, and the PBS App.

Read and listen to more from WFAE and FRONTLINE’s series Fractured.