Can You Afford to Retire? (full documentary) | FRONTLINE

​​More and more elderly Americans will be faced with the decision as to whether to spend their later years in assisted living facilities, which have sprung up as an alternative to nursing homes. But is this loosely regulated, multi-billion dollar industry putting seniors at risk? (Aired 2013) In this major 2013 investigation with ProPublica, FRONTLINE examines the operations of the nation’s largest assisted living company, raising questions about the drive for profits and fatal lapses in care. Assisted living started in the 1980s as a reaction to nursing homes, which had become more oriented toward hospitalization, and as a way of offering seniors more choices and more independence in the way they live. But over the years, assisted living has evolved to house seniors who need specialized care, such as those with memory impairments. That means that people have more needs, require more attention — and, some senior advocates argue, more or better regulations to ensure that the residents are safe and getting the quality of care they need. FRONTLINE is produced at GBH in Boston and is broadcast nationwide

Inside a counterterrorism police unit in Karachi, Pakistan, dedicated to tracking down suspected members of the Pakistani Taliban. (Aired 2015) In the nearly five years since the Taliban seized control of Afghanistan, there’s been a dramatic increase in attacks within neighboring Pakistan by the militant group Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, commonly called the Pakistani Taliban or TTP. Pakistan has accused Taliban-controlled Afghanistan of harboring the group and enabling it to launch cross-border attacks, which the Afghan government denies — and in recent weeks, the fight between the two countries escalated into what Pakistan’s government called “open war.” Against this volatile backdrop, FRONTLINE’s 2015 documentary “Taliban Hunters” offers relevant history on TTP and Pakistani security forces’ fight against it. This short documentary went inside a Karachi-based counterterrorism police unit dedicated to tracking down Taliban suspects. As the documentary reported, TTP first emerged in 2007 and used to have only a small, underground presence in Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city. But by the time the documentary aired, the group had been gaining ground in the city of over 20 million people, and carrying out suicide

It’s been 15 years since the rebellion in Syria against Bashar al-Assad’s government began. “The Regime” examined how the uprising started and the brutal crackdown that followed. (Aired 2011) On March 6, 2011, young boys painted messages on the walls of a school 60 miles south of Syria’s capital, Damascus. “Freedom, freedom and freedom, only,” read one message. “Down with the corrupt Assad,” read another. Soon after, the boys were rounded up by the government’s secret police. Their fathers went to see the police chief, a cousin of Syria’s then-president, Bashar al-Assad, and begged him to release their children. Airing later that year, “The Regime” examined what happened to the boys, and how outrage over their fate helped to fuel the Syrian uprising. “That very instance of repression, of torture, seemed to galvanize the town itself,” the late reporter Anthony Shadid said in the documentary. “And almost from that moment, the uprising seemed to gain momentum.” As Syrians took to the streets to protest and to call for more freedoms, the swift and brutal response by Assad’s security forces followed

An investigation into the fight for justice after a deadly 1981 attack on the village of El Mozote and surrounding areas, and how the case against high-ranking military officials faltered. (Aired 2021) This short documentary from FRONTLINE, Retro Report and ProPublica examined the horrors of what happened when U.S.-trained and equipped Salvadoran soldiers killed some 1,000 civilians, many of them children, in an attack more than 40 years ago. In the documentary, Raymond Bonner — who was one of the first journalists to bear witness to the aftermath of the massacre — recounted the experience of reporting the story and spoke with survivors of the attack. This on-the-ground investigation detailed how, for decades following the tragedy, there was little movement towards holding anyone accountable, and how the case against high-ranking military officials faltered under Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele. “Massacre in El Salvador” laid bare the nation’s grisly past and the decades-long struggle for justice. “Massacre in El Salvador” is a FRONTLINE and Retro Report production with ProPublica. The producer and writer is Kit R. Roane. The senior producers are Frank

FRONTLINE and Univision News uncovered the hidden price that many migrant women working in America’s fields and packing plants pay to keep their jobs and provide for their families. (Aired 2013) For the women who pick and package the food we eat every day, sexual assault often comes with the job. “Rape in the Fields/Violación de un Sueño” investigated why female farmworkers, especially those who are undocumented, fall prey to field bosses and co-workers — and run the very real risk that they’ll lose their jobs or be deported if they dare to denounce their attackers. Explore additional reporting on "Rape in the Fields" on our website: FRONTLINE is produced at GBH in Boston and is broadcast nationwide on PBS. Funding for FRONTLINE is provided through the support of PBS viewers and by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Additional funding is provided by the Abrams Foundation; the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation; Park Foundation; and the FRONTLINE Journalism Fund with major support from Jon and Jo Ann Hagler on behalf of the Jon L. Hagler Foundation, and additional

How El Paso, Texas, became the Trump administration’s immigration policy testing ground and then the target of a white supremacist. (Aired 2020) From producer Marcela Gaviria, correspondent Martin Smith and their team, the 2020 documentary “Targeting El Paso” investigated how the border city that has been called the Ellis Island of the Southwest became a testing ground for some of former President Donald Trump’s most controversial immigration policies, a subject of his anti-immigrant rhetoric, the site of a surge of migrant families crossing the U.S.–Mexico border — and, on Aug. 3, 2019, the target of a deadly attack by a white supremacist. Interviews with current and former immigration officials, U.S. Border Patrol agents, migrants and advocates tell the inside story from the epicenter of the border crisis. FRONTLINE is produced at GBH in Boston and is broadcast nationwide on PBS. Funding for FRONTLINE is provided through the support of PBS viewers and by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Additional funding is provided by the Abrams Foundation; the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation; Park Foundation; the Heising-Simons Foundation; and