Listen to the Top 5 ‘FRONTLINE Dispatch’ Podcast Episodes of 2024

Over the past 12 months, The FRONTLINE Dispatch podcast featured  thought-provoking conversations with journalists and documentary filmmakers behind some of 2024’s most compelling investigative reporting.

The podcast was also home to an experiment: a special, chapterized audio version of Democracy on Trial, FRONTLINE’s 2.5-hour investigation of the roots and implications of the federal criminal case against Donald Trump related to his role in efforts to overturn the 2020 election results. (Heeding the Department of Justice’s guidance that the Constitution protects sitting presidents from prosecution, the special counsel dropped the case against the president-elect in late November.)

As the year draws to a close, we’ve collected the five most-downloaded new episodes released on The FRONTLINE Dispatch feed in 2024, based on total downloads across all podcast players as of press time.

Listen to the episodes that made the list below — and if you haven’t already, subscribe to The FRONTLINE Dispatch on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. For more audio journalism, subscribe to our FRONTLINE Film Audio Tracks and explore our other podcasts: I’m Not a Monster, Un(re)solved and the in-progress limited series Breakdown.

1. Democracy on Trial, Part One: A Blueprint for the Case Against Trump

In the first installment of the Democracy on Trial audio series, former President Donald Trump is charged with crimes committed in office — an unprecedented event in American history. The Jan. 6 Select Committee report starts to build a case against Trump, which will go on to become a blueprint for special counsel Jack Smith. And a central question emerges for the committee: What did former President Trump know about the 2020 election results, and when did he know it?

Related documentary: Democracy on Trial (our most-streamed new documentary of 2024) is available to watch on FRONTLINE’s website, the PBS App, FRONTLINE’s YouTube channel and the PBS Documentaries Prime Video Channel.

2. Reconstructing the Uvalde Shooting Response

The May 2022 gun massacre at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, left 19 children and two teachers dead. It was one of the deadliest school shootings in U.S. history. Inside the Uvalde Response, a documentary from FRONTLINE, ProPublica and The Texas Tribune, probed the chaotic police response to the shooting and shed new light on law enforcement’s thoughts and actions as the tragedy unfolded. Lomi Kriel, a reporter with the ProPublica-Texas Tribune Investigative Unit, and director Juanita Ceballos joined The FRONTLINE Dispatch to discuss how they used hundreds of hours of body cam footage and officer interviews to reconstruct one of the most criticized mass shooting responses in recent history, and examine what went wrong.

Related documentary: Inside the Uvalde Response is available to watch on FRONTLINE’s website, the PBS App, FRONTLINE’s YouTube channel and the PBS Documentaries Prime Video Channel.

3. Democracy on Trial, Part Two: A Pressure Campaign and a Warning

In part two of the Democracy on Trial audio series, Georgia election official Gabriel Sterling issues a stark warning about the potential for violence. Rusty Bowers, former Arizona House speaker and a lifelong Republican, testifies in front of the Jan. 6 Select Committee about former President Donald Trump’s campaign of pressure on local officials. And two Georgia election workers, Shaye Moss and Ruby Freeman, face racist threats after being named in a conspiracy theory about stolen votes.

4. Democracy on Trial, Part Three: An “Invitation” for Jan. 6

In part three of the Democracy on Trial audio series, the Jan. 6 Select Committee examines the pressures mounting on the Justice Department and then-Vice President Mike Pence to intervene on Trump’s behalf. Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger recalls a phone call in which the former president tells him, “I just want to find 11,780 votes” — the number of votes needed to win the 2020 presidential election in the state. And the former president sends a now-famous tweet inviting supporters to Washington D.C. on Jan. 6, 2021, to protest the results of the 2020 election, saying it “will be wild.”

5. Investigating the Rise of the Far Right in Germany

In recent EU elections, far-right parties made major gains across the continent, including Germany’s AfD party. FRONTLINE correspondent Evan Williams has been reporting on the rise of the far-right in Germany for years. In 2021, he examined a wave of violence targeting Jews, Muslims, immigrants, and politicians in FRONTLINE’s documentary Germany’s Neo-Nazis and the Far Right. He joined The FRONTLINE Dispatch after returning to the country this year to report Germany’s Enemy Within, a deep look at the rise of the far-right AfD party and its vision for the country.

Related documentary: Germany’s Enemy Within is available to watch on FRONTLINE’s website, the PBS App, FRONTLINE’s YouTube channel and the PBS Documentaries Prime Video Channel.

Subscribe to The FRONTLINE Dispatch on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.