Press Reviews of the Series FRONTLINE/World

The editor's pick of the night is a new venture by arguably the best new show on the air today: It's FRONTLINE/World ... . As we've said many times before, FRONTLINE is the benchmark of excellence for news documentaries, so when it launches a unique newsmagazine, we think that's a show definitely worth watching.

-- TV Guide

The modern era of backpack journalism gets a sterling showcase with the pilot episode of FRONTLINE/World, which takes viewers well off the beaten path for stories that nevertheless resonate strongly across our global village.

-- Los Angeles Times

**** (Four stars out of four) FRONTLINE takes another step toward becoming a definitive TV source for foreign news with the premiere of FRONTLINE/World ... . FRONTLINE/World is a magazine of international stories -- some quirky, some profoundly disturbing -- reported by producer-correspondents who get little face time. They usually operate as a one- or two-man band and travel with no entourage. Reporters can be nimble, with small digital cameras that allow them to move freely and surreptitiously.

-- Boston Herald

A group called the Supreme Beings of Leisure does the intro music, which is rhythmic and electronic. The segments are reported by young video journalists who are free to include personal narratives and observations. And the stories are short (some are less than 12 minutes). But the PBS program called FRONTLINE/World that premieres Thursday night comes from a long tradition of foreign affairs reporting ... . There is no host, which allows more time for the journalists to report their stories. The hour-long program has its own Web site (pbs.org/frontlineworld) and its own way of looking at the people and politics that shape the world -- for better and for worse.

-- San Francisco Chronicle

Be assured it's not your father's FRONTLINE. The journalists are younger, sometimes students. The photography is more incidental, often employing go-anywhere digital cameras. The target audience is clearly younger than that for, say, Meet the Press. ... [I]t opens a window on a world little known to American audiences. If that is the legacy of the new FRONTLINE/World, it will be a meaningful one.

--Seattle Post-Intelligencer

FRONTLINE/World: Stories from a Small Planet is the most traveling you can do without leaving your house.

This fascinating, irregular spin-off of "Frontline" airs tonight and next Thursday at 9 p.m. on Channel 13. Its subtitle, "Stories from a Small Planet," describes not just the program's content, but its mood. Intelligent, complicated and often dryly funny, it often suggests what might happen if "60 Minutes" and the public radio series "This American Life" had a baby, then turned it loose to travel the globe.

--The Star Ledger

Here's the idea: Devote an entire television newsmagazine hour to news from other countries.

Why do such a thing? Well, there is, rumor has it, some evidence out there that what happens in other lands is increasingly relevant to those of us nestled in the American bosom.

Enter "Frontline," already more attuned to global doings than the average TV news program and taking its interest a degree higher with its occasional "FRONTLINE/World" subseries.

--Chicago Tribune

"With the help of DV techology, FRONTLINE/World not only provides coverage of independent foreign news stories but gives young videographers a unique opportunity to air their work. ... In addition to documentaries, the FRONTLINE/World staff has also managed to create a high-quality website. The quality of the video streamed on the site, and the wealth of additional, original reporting that accompanies each FRONTLINE/World story makes it clear that this website is more than an afterthought or an archive. It's an impressive contribution to journalism in its own right."

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--Video Systems

For more reviews or to see press response to a particular episode, visit the Episode Guide.

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