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 tracks on Apple Podcasts or our website. 

Listen to the full-length audio from Age of Easy Money, FRONTLINE’s recent investigation into the Federal Reserve’s “easy money” policies. 

Around the country and across the world, economic uncertainty continues as businesses and individuals adjust to a new reality: the Federal Reserve has been raising interest rates and pulling back on its epic monetary experiment that started with the Great Financial Crisis.

From the award-winning team behind The Facebook Dilemma and Amazon Empire, the two-hour documentary investigates how the Fed’s policies have changed the American economy and what comes after the age of easy money.

In the third and final installment of the documentary series America and the Taliban, FRONTLINE looks at the months leading up to the Taliban takeover and the consequences of the group’s return to power — including the return of harsh restrictions for women.  

In this episode of The FRONTLINE Dispatch podcast, released on World Press Freedom Day, filmmakers Marcela Gaviria and Martin Smith joined host Raney Aronson-Rath to share observations from their reporting on the ground about the reversal of women’s rights in Afghanistan.

“It just feels like half the population is in hiding,” Gaviria told Aronson-Rath. “And that might be a bit of an exaggeration, but it does feel like you can sense the fear among so many women, and fear for their future and the future of their children.”

This is part two of Raney Aronson-Rath’s conversation with Gaviria and Smith about America and the Taliban. You can hear more from Gaviria and Smith on the previous episode of The FRONTLINE Dispatch. Watch all three parts of America and the Taliban on FRONTLINE’s website, FRONTLINE’s YouTube channel, and the PBS App. 

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Drawing on decades of on-the-ground reporting in Afghanistan, the new three-part series America and the Taliban traces pivotal moments in America’s longest war, and how it culminated in Taliban victory.

Award-winning producers Marcela Gaviria and Martin Smith join FRONTLINE editor-in-chief and executive producer Raney Aronson-Rath for a discussion on their decades of reporting in Afghanistan, and what it was like to revisit people and places from past coverage for this new series.

"There's one basic thing that they all knew, and that was that the Taliban were not going to go anywhere permanently," Smith told Aronson-Rath about many of the Afghan people he met, "but the Americans were eventually going to leave."

Parts one and two of America and the Taliban are available to stream on FRONTLINE’s website, FRONTLINE’s YouTube channel and the PBS App.

Part three premieres on PBS and online Tuesday, April 25, 2023.

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In the aftermath of the second and third-largest bank failures in U.S. history, correspondent James Jacoby joins the FRONTLINE Dispatch to talk about Age of Easy Money, a documentary examining the power of the Federal Reserve and our current economic uncertainty. 

The film draws on over two years of reporting on the Fed’s so-called “easy money” policies, with Jaocby and team charting the start of the Fed’s economic experiment after the 2008 financial crisis and again during COVID; the Fed’s decision to start raising interest rates in 2022; and what’s happened since — including recession fears, bank market disruptions, and concerns that the fight against inflation will trigger unemployment.

“In some ways there's been this kind of gravitational force at work, this invisible force, and people weren't able to necessarily recognize it,” Jacoby told host Raney Aronson-Rath. “At the root of it is what the Fed has been doing.” 

Age of Easy Money is now streaming on FRONTLINE’s website, the PBS Video App, and FRONTLINE’s YouTube channel. 

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During the early months of Russia’s assault on Ukraine, filmmakers Mani Benchelah and Patrick Tombola documented the lives of civilians and first responders trying to survive in Kharkiv, a Ukrainian city near the border of Russia. Their work became the FRONTLINE film Ukraine: Life Under Russia’s Attack, released in August of 2022.

An updated version of the documentary, released in February 2023, revisits many of the Ukrainians Benchelah and Tombola first profiled and takes us to the present day — a year after Russia’s invasion began.

Joining FRONTLINE editor-in-chief and executive producer Raney Aronson-Rath after their most recent reporting trip to Kharkiv, Benchelah and Tombola reflect on documenting how the region and its inhabitants have been changed by a year of war.

“The new Ukraine is one where everyone is extremely conscious of how close they had come to death,” Tombola said. “Their mindset has dramatically changed, and there's a real sense of having all shared a very defining moment in their life.”

The updated Ukraine: Life Under Russia’s Attack documentary is now streaming on FRONTLINE’s website, in the PBS App and on FRONTLINE’s YouTube channel.

As FRONTLINE celebrates 40 years on the air, editor-in-chief and executive producer Raney Aronson-Rath is hosting conversations with the journalists and filmmakers behind some of FRONTLINE’s most groundbreaking work.

A.C. Thompson is a reporter for ProPublica who has been a correspondent with FRONTLINE since 2010. He joins The FRONTLINE Dispatch to discuss his years of reporting on right-wing extremism for award-winning films like American Insurrection and the series Documenting Hate in light of recent high-profile incidents of antisemitism.

“Over time, if you were following the key sort of white nationalist and right wing extremist talking points, you saw more and more antisemitism coming through,” Thompson told Aronson-Rath. “What I think you've seen since then is sort of a quiet but steady uptick in antisemitism and now it's bursting onto the scene.”

Thompson also reflects on the unique investigative collaborations he and FRONTLINE developed over the years, and previews what he’s working on in 2023.

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