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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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
View online at AVOD
Summary: A critical question continues to haunt America's national psyche: how could the most powerful nation on earth have been so utterly unprepared to protect its homeland from the September 11th hijackers? First broadcast in 2004, this program offers a special one-hour analysis of the 9/11 Commission Report-connecting the dots of what happened that infamous day and studying the warning signs that...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: Can America fight an enemy within its borders while preserving civil liberties? This program examines the critical role of the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Forces in the hunt for al Qaeda sleeper cells, and how that role has created new challenges for the agency. Detailing the FBI's discovery and capture of Detroit and Buffalo cells, its response to foreign intelligence, domestic surveillance...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: A prolonged series of terrorist attacks could seriously endanger America's stability. In this Fred Friendly Seminar, moderator and Harvard Law School professor Charles Ogletree compels a team of experts to wrestle with a frightening scenario-a wave of bombings in a large port city and the credible rumor of a nuclear "dirty bomb" arriving in the harbor on the Fourth of July. With 5,000 shipping...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: This ABC News program looks at the constitutional controversy over gay marriage as it exploded in both Massachusetts and California in February 2004. Is it a matter of civil rights or human rights? Should it be addressed at a state level or a federal level? Ted Koppel moderates a debate about gay marriage and its legal ramifications with Representative Barney Frank, conservative political...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: The year is 2015. A coalition of European countries has decriminalized most stimulants, narcotics, and hallucinogens. But has legalization made drug use-or the streets of London-any safer? This program depicts a future in which police officers, Big Pharma executives, and recreational drug consumers would, depending on one's perspective, either reap the benefits or suffer the consequences of a...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
View online at AVOD
Summary: Confronting one of the most complex and potentially divisive issues on the American cultural landscape, this ABC News program examines the intellectual and political forces that support the teaching of intelligent design in public schools. The video focuses on the Discovery Institute, a Seattle-based think tank that has generated widespread enthusiasm-and criticism-for making I.D. part of...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: America's frenzied debate over government health insurance has eclipsed another, no less challenging, national health care crisis-the plight of people with serious mental illnesses like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. This Fred Friendly Seminar sheds light on barriers to treatment, ethical and legal dilemmas, and fragmented social policies that are creating a nightmare for families, filling...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: Entering a crucible of racial, political, and legal issues, this program explores America's national debate over affirmative action. Viewers will receive a detailed look at the 2003 U.S. Supreme Court case which confirmed the legality of race-based academic admission criteria, as well as a behind-the-scenes examination of hiring policies at the Ford Motor Company. Observations from students,...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Who is to blame for America's healthcare mess, and how can we fix it? In this ABC News program, John Stossel examines the insurance industry, the need for competition among care providers, and the possibility of combining lower costs with better medicine. Arguing against Michael Moore's documentary Sicko, which advocates government-funded healthcare, Stossel interviews Harvard Business School...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: The implementation of the 1996 welfare reform act's Charitable Choice provision has proved controversial in the extreme. In this program, supporters and opponents alike give a clear sense of what is at stake as they examine the application of Charitable Choice in Indiana, Massachusetts, and North Carolina-states with distinctly different political cultures and religious landscapes. These...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
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