This Week On FRONTLINE ----

“
FRONTLINE's new season begins this Tuesday night, October 16th. It also will mark our 25th anniversary on PBS. Last month we were honored with a Special Emmy Award for Excellence in Television Documentary Filmmaking for "outstanding, well-crafted and intelligent documentaries that examine complex and controversial subjects in a thoughtful and dispassionate manner." Also winning an Emmy was veteran producer Michael Kirk, whose documentary, "The Lost Year in Iraq," won in the category of "Outstanding Historical Programming."

It is to Kirk, co-producer/reporter Jim Gilmore, and the other professionals on their team that we have turned for the premier report of FRONTLINE's special new season.

On Tuesday, in "Cheney's Law," Kirk tells one of the most significant stories of our times. In this report Kirk outlines how two men -- Vice President Dick Cheney and his legal adviser, David Addington -- used a little-known group inside the Justice Department to interpret the law so as to greatly enhance presidential power. Their assertion of virtually unlimited presidential authority to conduct the war on terror, both abroad and at home, raises profound constitutional questions. Especially controversial is the role of Congress to act as a check on executive power.

But Kirk discovered that it would be a revolt inside the Justice Department itself -- triggered by a conservative law professor, Jack Goldsmith, who had been appointed by the president -- that would finally lead to a "no" to Cheney's lawyer, David Addington.

For awhile, under Attorney General John Ashcroft, that "no" stood. But when Ashcroft left and President Bush appointed his old friend Alberto Gonzales as attorney general, some of the "no's" were then reconsidered.

Just recently The New York Times revealed that secret new Justice Department memos, approved by Gonzales, permit the CIA to engage in the harshest interrogation practices ever - practices that some have called torture.

We invite you to join us Tuesday night and learn more about the secret battles of the lawyers -- a clash that ultimately shapes how far the executive branch of our government can go in waging the war on terror.

And then be sure to visit our Web site to watch the program in full online. And explore more of what insiders and journalists have to say about the main themes and issues covered in this story, plus join in the online disscusion about it.

Louis Wiley, Jr.
Executive Editor

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/

”

“FRONTLINE
http://www.pbs.org/frontline/

This Week: "Showdown With Iran" (60 minutes),
Tuesday, Oct. 23 at 9pm on PBS (check local listings)
Live Discussion: Chat with producer Greg Barker, Wed., Oct. 24, at 11 am ET

Will there be another war in the Middle East -- a war between the U.S. and Iran?

This Tuesday FRONTLINE traces the complex relationship between the two countries since 9/1l. From cooperation during the war in Afghanistan to confrontation today in Iraq, there appear to be hawks and doves in both nations striving to control policy. However, Iran's determination to continue with its nuclear program and its support of Shia militias who are attacking U.S. forces in Iraq are the factors that could cause President Bush to order military action.

Says former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton, "I don't know what the president will do between now and the end of the administration. He has said repeatedly that it is unacceptable for Iran to have nuclear weapons, and if he means unacceptable, then I assume he would take military action if he had to."

Such analysis doesn't seem to frighten the Iranians. Their Supreme Leader has said, "The U.S. can't do a damn thing to us." And the deputy head of Iran's National Security Council, Mohammad Jafari, tells FRONTLINE in his first-ever television interview:

"You will not find a single instance in which a country has inflicted harm on us and we have left it without a response. So if the United States makes such a mistake, they should know that we will definitely respond. And we don't make idle threats."

Jafari is senior commander of the Quds Force, the elite foreign operations branch of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, and a man the U.S. almost caught with other Iranian operatives inside Iraq earlier this year. Iranian hardliners are rarely seen on American television. But FRONTLINE producer Greg Barker and co-producer Claudia Rizzi, were able to convince some of the most senior players in Iran's power structure to speak with them.

The Iranians display a profound distrust of the U.S., especially its actions in Iraq. While welcoming the demise of their arch-enemy, Saddam Hussein, they say the U.S. should now get out. Iran has great influence with the Shia government in Iraq that the U.S. helped bring to power. One expert in the program notes the irony: the U.S. action in Iraq has inadvertently helped pave the way for a revival of Iran's historic ambition to be the key power in the region.

To understand the context for the current U.S.-Iran stand-off, we invite you to join us Tuesday night. And if you miss the program, it's available for viewing on our Web site, along with the interviews with key Iranian officials, more analysis of the issues, and a report by Barker on the making of this film. And, we invite you to join in the discussion.

Louis Wiley, Jr.
Executive Editor



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+ Live Online Discussion on Washingtonpost.com ...

Producer Greg Barker will be online this Wednesday, Oct 24, at 11am ET, to discuss "Showdown With Iran"

For details, see:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2007/10/18/DI2007101801299.html

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FRONTLINE
http://www.pbs.org/frontline/

This Week: "The Undertaking" (60 minutes),
Tuesday, Oct. 30 at 9pm on PBS (check local listings)
Live Discussion: Chat with producers Karen O'Connor and Miri Navasky Wed., Oct. 31, at 11 am ET

Every so often we have the occasion to write a special note about a FRONTLINE program, and this is one of them.

Tuesday night's "The Undertaking" is a film about death and dying, grief and bereavement -- subjects we all are uncomfortable talking about, but not subjects we don't think about. And yet, this is not a depressing film. It is tender, poignant and life-affirming.

It features Thomas Lynch, a writer, poet and funeral director. For three generations he and his family have cared for the dead -- and the living -- in a small town in southcentral Michigan.

Producers Karen O'Connor and Miri Navasky obtained rare access into the world of Lynch & Sons. They interweave the details of their work caring for the dead -- the embalming, the dressing of the body -- with the intimate stories of the families who come to the funeral home to plan the rituals that will honor the life of a loved one. Throughout the program, O'Connor and Navasky include excerpts from Lynch's award-winning book, "The Undertaking: Life Studies From the Dismal Trade." In the end, their film becomes a deeply moving meditation on the journey that is taken between the living and the dead when someone dies, and how the rituals of a funeral help us, in the words of Lynch, "...to make some sense of life and living, dying and the dead."

A colleague of ours had an early look at it and wrote back the next day --

"I'm someone who has always been very fearful of death, and I can honestly say I haven't stopped thinking about the film. It has made me view my life and my little ones differently. My husband and I discussed afterward that we wanted to tell everyone we knew to watch it -- but it also seems like a difficult film to spread word-of-mouth..."

So we want to get the word out here: "The Undertaking" is an extraordinary film and we hope you will join us Tuesday night.

And don't forget that you can watch it anytime on our Web site, where you also can explore more about the Lynches and the stories of the individual families, and share your thoughts in our "Join the Discussion"area of the site.

Marrie Campbell
Editorial Director



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+ Live Online Discussion on Washingtonpost.com ...

Producers Karen O'Connor and Miri Navasky will be online this Wednesday, Oct 31, at 11am ET, to discuss "The Undertaking"

For details, see:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2007/10/24/DI2007102402178.html

”

“
FRONTLINE
http://www.pbs.org/frontline/

- This Week: "Poisoned Waters" (120 minutes),
April 21st at 9pm on PBS (Check local listings)

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For years, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Hedrick Smith has reported from the corridors of power in Washington, on Wall Street, and overseas. But these days, he's worried about something that he's found much closer to home -- something mysterious that's appeared in waters that he knows well: frogs with six legs, male amphibians with ovaries, "dead zones" where nothing can live or grow.

What's causing the trouble? Smith suspects the answers might lie close to home as well.

This Tuesday night, in a special two-hour FRONTLINE broadcast --"Poisoned Waters"-- Smith takes a hard look at a new wave of pollution that's imperiling the nation's waterways, focusing on two of our most iconic: the Chesapeake Bay and Puget Sound. He also examines three decades of environmental regulation that are failing to meet this new threat, and have yet to clean up the ongoing mess of PCBs, the staggering waste from factory farms, and the fall-out from unchecked suburban sprawl.

"The environment has slipped off our radar screen because it's not a hot crisis like the financial meltdown, war, or terrorism," Smith says. "But pollution is a ticking time bomb. It's a chronic cancer that is slowly eating away the natural resources that are vital to our very lives."

Among the most worrisome of the new contaminants are "endocrine disruptors," chemical compounds found in common household products that mimic hormones in the human body and cause freakish mutations in frogs and amphibians.

"There are five million people being exposed to endocrine disruptors just in the Mid-Atlantic region," a doctor at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health tells Smith. "And yet we don't know precisely how many of them are going to develop premature breast cancer, going to have problems with reproduction, going to have all kinds of congenital anomalies of the male genitalia that are happening at a broad low level so that they don't raise the alarm in the general public."

Can new models of "smart growth" and regulation reverse decades of damage? Are the most real and lasting changes likely to come from the top down, given an already overstretched Obama administration? Or will the greatest reasons for hope come from the bottom up, through the action of a growing number of grassroots groups trying to effect environmental change?

Join us for the broadcast this Tuesday night. Online, you can watch "Poisoned Waters" again, find out how safe your drinking water is, and learn how you can get involved.

Ken Dornstein
Senior Editor

”

“thanks for the heads up. this interests me.”

“This week on Frontline...we attempt to control you through fear and sensationalism.

Kill your TV and think.”

“Right on! Fear and sensationalism: Exactly how we ended up in Iraq.
last edited: 4/20/09 6:09:14 AM”

“Hedrick Smith does good stuff. 'Tis true he's no Bill o'Reilly, but this is a good thing.”

“Silly Tilt, ignore what's in your water.

Consider yourself lucky to live in the greatest (&@^%?@#!(&)#%@!&^*$@(&^*%)+&*(&#)^&%@#$%& and STFU.”

“MarkO hates America.”

“Telling the truth isn't nice is it stovie?”

“well nigal, i like to hear views from many angles.
last edited: 4/20/09 7:57:57 AM”

“salebored lose his password?”

“Stovie glows boats”

“well nigal, i like to hear views from many angles.

Oh so do I. Public radio is the only radio I listen to and PBS rawks but I simply hate when media uses fear. I don't care if it's PBS or Faux or who it is. No other issue brings out the fear tactics like the environment too.”

“Wingnuts love their polluters don't they?”

“Hypocrites love their liberals, don't they?”

“Tonight's the night ---- Warm up your rabbit ears.”

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COMING TUESDAY: Obama’s War
Airs Oct 13, 9PM ET (check local listings)

This summer, FRONTLINE sent veteran producers Martin Smith and Marcela Gaviria and their production team to one of the most volatile regions on earth: Afghanistan and Pakistan. They embedded with U.S. Marines on the front lines, talked to the architects of the U.S. counterinsurgency strategy, and then crossed the border into Pakistan, where many believe the heart of the problem lies.

The result is FRONTLINE's season premiere--"Obama's War"--an intense, on-the-ground view of the U.S fight against Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The film couldn't be more timely, as the president's "war council" remains divided over the best strategy to pursue--counterinsurgency or counterterror?--and the numbers of new U.S. troops needed to carry it out. Indeed, Smith and Gaviria offer a candid interview with General Stanley McChrystal, whose position paper and troop request has just officially landed on the president's desk.

We think this film contains some of the most profound war reportage FRONTLINE has ever done. Already, the first 24 minutes of the film we posted on the web last week have received hundreds of thousands of views--fast becoming what Wired magazine's national security blog calls "required viewing for everyone trying to figure out America's next steps in Afghanistan."

We hope you'll tune in Tuesday night. After the program, you can ask producer/correspondent Martin Smith your own questions in a live online chat hosted by the Washington Post.

Ken Dornstein
Senior Editor

”

“thanx tOOd.”

“They'll get the straight dope from Captain McCrystal Chic with Cheese and the Boys, then begin shreiking about COMMIES and SOCIALISTS and #&%!$ (oh my) if it all doesn't dovetail precisely with what their radio personalities tell them.

AH.... the insidious rewards of allowing the collapse of public education, (LOL)

”

“Tilty I am guessing spending all that time papering the wall holes in Slum Houses made you miss her name was Elizabeth or LIDDY Dole. The Libby "dole" is the way you mom makes money after her "money maker" got stretched out.”

“WOW I love how the libbies support the Generals Their PRESIDENTE appointed....”

“Why do the rednecks hate Libbie Dole?”

“It's poor little t*lty, what do you expect XL?”

“Whatsamatter Pigboy? Still looking for your WMD?”

“Back to the top ----”

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COMING TUESDAY: The Card Game
Airs Jan. 26th, 9PM ET (check local listings)

This week, President Obama came out swinging at Wall Street, vowing to fight to limit the size of the Big Banks and to restrict the sorts of risks they can take. And, he's just renewed his call for a Consumer Finance Protection Agency "so that people aren't getting gouged" by credit card companies.

Curious to know what happened the last time the administration attempted to rein in the financial services industry?

Tune in this Tuesday night to "The Card Game," a timely rebroadcast of FRONTLINE correspondent Lowell Bergman's joint investigation with the New York Times. The film examines the questionable practices the consumer finance industry has profited from for years--hidden fees, random rate hikes, deceptive promotional offers--and reveals the ways the industry has cleverly adapted to the Obama administration's attempted reforms.

We hope you'll watch Tuesday night, or catch it here online. And check out the latest on "The Card Game" joint reporting project with the New York Times.

Ken Dornstein
Senior Editor

”

“
Behind Taliban Lines
Airs Feb. 23rd, 9PM ET (check local listings)

"I was thinking that I'm going to meet a group of Taliban," veteran Afghan journalist Najibullah Qureishi says near the start of this week's FRONTLINE broadcast. "I was thinking, 'This is the time which I came myself to enemy.' I was thinking, 'They might not let me go back.'"

For Qureishi, what followed was an extraordinary journey: Ten days among a militant cell in northern Afghanistan, living and filming, as they try to attack an American supply route. The result--"Behind Taliban Lines"--offers a rare glimpse into the inner-workings of an insurgent cell who Qureishi witnesses plotting their attack, picking up support and weapons from locals, and helping to impose a strict Islamic law across the north, which threatens to become a new battlefront in the Afghan war.

This just-published Wall Street Journal review calls it an "intimate look at the lives and passions of these 'Armies of the Devout,' as they plot their destruction of the enemy."

We've posted an excerpt from the film in which Qureishi manages to film the militants-- members of an extremist group called Hezb-i-Islami that fights alongside the Taliban throughout the country--building the bombs that they hope will stop the American supply truck and blow up a jeep filled with Afghan police. This scene, and the entire film, offer an important window onto the tactics, training, and mind-set of the insurgents who the U.S. and NATO face as they step up their "Afghan surge."

Also in this hour: A special FRONTLINE/World report from across the border in Pakistan, as reporter David Montero investigates the country's troubled public school system, which is among the worst in the world despite years of U.S. aid.

We hope you'll watch Tuesday night, and then joins us online for more background on this report.


Ken Dornstein
Senior Editor

”

“Did Frontline hire Michael Moore to do the piece? That way we could kill two birds with one stone: We'd not only discover why the Taliban are "freedom fighters" who act as a bulwork against "American Imperialism", but also why we need to increase spending on the Pakistan school system in order to fix it.


Frontline: Providing a unique, and special, view of the world.”

“emphasis on "special"”

“Can you envision an american Buyaban fighting in the Appalachians against an invading chinese army? Gun in one hand and a bible in the other.”

“broken record ^^”

“Yes looking forward to Frontline especially after that Children of the Taliban a ways back


Children of the Taliban
http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=children%20of%20the%20taliban&rls=com.microsoft:en-us:IE-SearchBox&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=ie7&rlz=1I7GGIT_en&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wv#

nimrod
6:36:35 PM
5/31/09
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“Saw this yet again and Im even more scared.

Children of the Taliban Frontline

HOW can the Muslim world and Obama rid the world of this radical indocrination?


Hint: its not going to be thru diplomacy and sitting down and talking.


Am I missing something?? This really bothers me, and nothing has changed since 9 11.”
nimrod
4:22:04 PM
6/05/09
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“after viewing this you want to nuke the children? yeah, you are missing a lot.”
offtrack
4:35:55 PM
6/05/09
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report this message


Dont understand that response? Still missing alot!
last edited: 2/22/10 10:09:07 AM”

“Isnt the frontline viewership limited to paralyzed and elderly patients who cannot reach the remote...oh and a few loons who still believe the PrezBO can bring hope and change.”

“XL explain?”

“Check the number on Neilsen...LOL”

“Goobers still think 'behind enemy lines' refers to the Mason-Dixon.”

“Lame show

Reminded me of a books I read of our own west, and some Indians encountered were just loosely part of a tribe or had nothing, because of war with other tribes, but it was all about killing the white man.”

“I watched behind Enemy Lines for Tilt's sake.

Just what I thought.

A one-sided telling of a story. It WAS masterfully done, but again as I've said before, Frontline does a great job of telling one side of a story.

The show was obviously sympathetic to the U.S. giving the ME aid for education, and it was obviously sympathetic to their cause. There was virtually NO mention of other (western) points of view, other than the reported occasionally asking softball questions to the ME rulers what they thought of [insert western viewpoint].”