Summary: The United States continues to be the wealthiest country in the world, yet one in eight Americans-approximately 37 million people-live below the poverty line. This program analytically and sympathetically discusses the effects and implications of poverty, examining factors such as illiteracy, insufficient job skills, substance abuse, and crime. The phenomenon of multigenerational poverty is...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
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Summary: Take a trip to historic Tombstone, Arizona, and relive Wyatt Earp's gunfight at the O.K. Corral-or watch 21st-century vigilantes scour the landscape for Mexican invaders. Modern pseudo-cowboys haunt Southwestern communities with growing frequency, and they represent one of several new trends examined in this documentary on America's immigration anxiety. Focusing on the porous U.S.-Mexico border...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
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Summary: While poverty has traditionally been a problem only for the unemployed, a new demographic of Americans has emerged-the working poor. This program explores the disturbing realities that many people in low-wage jobs face every day-such as having to decide whether to pay the rent, buy groceries, or see a doctor. Viewers will learn how standards of living are often measured, how suburban areas have...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2008
View online at AVOD
Summary: For many teenagers in Mexico, heading across the U.S. border after high school is much more common than heading off to college. But as law enforcement continues to tighten security, that journey is growing more and more hazardous. Filmed on both sides of the border, this program briefly examines issues surrounding illegal immigration-particularly how much more a person can earn in America than...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
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Summary: While politicians grapple with reforming welfare, those who receive benefits worry about how welfare reform will affect their lives. Critics of welfare argue that it has created a psychology of dependency, and that it is rife with fraud and abuse. This program traces the history of welfare beginning with the Depression, then examines the complex issues involved in reforming it. Experts discuss...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: For many Americans, the threat of sudden poverty has less to do with the nation's overall economy than it does with personal circumstances. This program discusses the hard facts of situational poverty with a focus on the four most common triggers: job loss, the fastest way to become impoverished; health issues, such as severe injury or long-term illness; the loss of a spouse through divorce or...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: This program weighs the financial savings of a reformed welfare system against our responsibility to those who need help. Political and religious leaders discuss the feasibility of establishing a new system that works to eliminate the problems of crime, drugs, poverty, and unwanted births. Critics and supporters of current reform efforts discuss their views. Those interviewed include a New...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: How much do American and Canadian citizens really understand about the personal, social, and economic struggles of undocumented workers? This program deepens that understanding, providing an intimate look inside the lives of two non-status migrant laborers. Geraldo, a Costa Rican construction worker, and Angela, a Caribbean domestic employee, describe their experiences with labor exploitation...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: As more and more companies view low-income Americans as opportunities for profit, the "poverty business" is taking off. In this program, Bill Moyers Journal and Expose: America's Investigative Reports follow a team of BusinessWeek reporters as they track corporate practices that some say are exploiting the working poor. Bill Moyers then talks with economist Dean Baker, co-director of the Center...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
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Summary: Each year, more than one million people try to cross the U.S.-Mexico border, contending with dangerous forces that prey on their hopes and exploit their gullibility. This program exposes the most painful, disturbing, and hidden dimension of illegal immigration: the growing black market trade in human beings. Shedding light on the poverty that causes so many to risk everything by leaving their...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2008
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Summary: The fictional locale known as Eagle Bay is breathtakingly beautiful. First home to a handful of modest houses, over the decades it has transitioned into a neighborhood of stately mansions-except for one 50-acre parcel, whose owners now want to sell it for subdivision. This Fred Friendly Seminar moderated by Harvard Law School's Arthur Miller explores the complexities that arise when a family's...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
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Summary: To at least one resident of the fictional city of Metropolis, a new outer suburb being planned for some pristine farmland sounds like the American Dream come true. His brother, also a Metropolite but an advocate of smart growth, sees it as a nightmare. Moderated by Harvard Law School's Arthur Miller, this Fred Friendly Seminar seeks to understand the housing situation facing the U.S.-a...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: On Wall Street, private equity firms are buying up corporations and turning them around for huge profits-while America's economic disparities widen. Bill Moyers talks with maverick labor leader Andrew Stern, president of the rapidly growing Service Employees International Union, about the looming gap between working families and the wealthiest Americans. Also on the program: Writer, activist,...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
View online at AVOD
Summary: In this ABC News program, John Stossel sheds light on troubling issues involving sexual behavior and criminal justice. Case studies include the story of 18-year-old Jon, who spent a year in jail after having sex with a 14-year-old girl-although her father later regretted pressing charges and tried to have Jon removed from Florida's sex offender registry. Other reports concern an alleged sex...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: Produced in Oahu, Hawaii, during the 2008 Blue Planet Energy Summit, this Fred Friendly Seminar features a panel of high-profile environmental and political leaders tasked with envisioning America's energy future. Broadcast journalist Frank Sesno, assuming the top post in a hypothetical presidential administration, challenges each "cabinet member" to contribute to a strategy that will end...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: Do Americans still hold certain truths to be self-evident? Do all human beings possess inalienable rights endowed by their creator? Are all lives of equal value? And if so, how do those core beliefs translate into public policy on issues such as healthcare, poverty, abortion, capital punishment, and euthanasia? This program explores what the late Joseph Cardinal Bernardin called a "consistent...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Pro-life advocates have waged a successful campaign to reduce abortions throughout the country, using state laws to regulate and limit the procedure and creating clinics offering alternatives. This Frontline documentary investigates the steady decline in the number of physicians and facilities carrying out abortions and focuses on local political battles in the states-particularly Mississippi,...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: America's healthcare system frequently leaves patients feeling shortchanged, while physicians are forced to overdose on paperwork and managed care companies are helpless to cap their soaring costs. What is the future of this system, as the tidal wave of Baby Boomers surges toward retirement? This program analyzes the symptoms of America's healthcare ills and suggests a prescription for...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Can America rise to the challenge posed by its economic competitors in Europe and the Pacific Rim? Fresh from NAFTA and GATT victories, President Clinton shares his vision for re-engineering America's industrial and trade policies, education strategy, and tax and fiscal incentives in this incisive interview with Hedrick Smith.
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: According to the Bush Administration, the war on terror requires new tactics and new thinking-including departure from the Geneva Conventions when deemed necessary. Guantanamo shows how that policy is implemented at Camp Delta, how it is vigorously defended in the name of national security, and how it is contested just as passionately on behalf of personal freedom and human rights. Reporter...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: It began with flu-like symptoms, but within a few days progressed in severity until patients began dying in droves. Emergency rooms were overrun, and hysteria had enveloped the metropolis. What was the cause of the ghastly plague? In this program-part one of a hypothetical scenario-ABC News anchor Ted Koppel delivers three successive reports, tracking the advance of a fictional biological...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2008
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Summary: One government service after another has been turned over to private business for a profit. In this program, Bill Moyers Journal and Expose: America's Investigative Reports examine a whistleblower's tale of military housing contracts gone awry as Seattle Post-Intelligencer reporter Eric Nalder reveals what happens when one private contractor drops the ball. In addition, Bill Moyers talks with...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: Can the U.S. afford to reform its healthcare system? Can it afford not to, with 46 million Americans lacking health insurance and millions more underinsured? This Fred Friendly Seminar explores the dilemmas and urgently needed policy decisions surrounding what has become, literally, a life-or-death issue. NYU law professor Arthur Miller guides a team of high-profile panelists through a series...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: Providing a balanced look at a highly contentious issue, this program takes viewers inside the scientific, religious, and philosophical debate over embryonic stem cell research. Divergent opinions and perspectives are presented by respected researchers, thinkers, and stakeholders-including renowned Australian geneticist Dr. Alan Trounson; Father Norman Ford, a prominent ethics commentator and...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009