Frontline

As death toll grew, funeral traditions ceased

New Orleans, it seems, is very good at good-byes.
Its funerals (shown here) are filled with music and color and passion. “This is what New Orleans does so beautifully,” someone says in “Frontline,” at 10 p.m. Tuesday (March 23) on PBS (check local listings).
But as the pandemic hit, everything changed. The death toll soared, but the traditions ceased.
Now “Frontline” looks at two Black-owned funeral homes. It’s an involving hour that happens to be at the same time as ABC’s excellent “Soul of a Nation,” which on that night views “Black joy.” Switching channels, we’ll pile joy upon sorrow upon rich human traditions. Read more…

“Frontline”: GOP “capitulated” to Trump

The images rippling through “Frontline” are familiar enough, with a mob (shown here in a news photo) storming the Capitol.
But beyond that, the hour (10 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 26, on PBS) asks a broader question: How did these people entwine with the stately restraint of the Republican Party?
“We’re the party of Lincoln,” Bob Corker, the former Republican senator from Tennessee, says in the film. So “demonizing people because of their color or background (is) not the party I grew up in.”
It’s convenient to simply point to Donald Trump, but Charles Sykes, a conservative author and former radio host, takes a wider view: “The Republican Party completely capitulated to him.” Read more…

Conspiracy theories swirl through internet

Conspiracy theories have long been lurking out there, stirring our emotions.
We’ve seen the Kennedy-assassination ideas of Oliver Stone and others; we’ve had UFO tales, billed as fiction (“X-Files”) or fact. Earlier, Joe McCarthy insisted he held the names of 205 Communist conspirators in the U.S. government.
Often, those views are nudged aside. But now, some viewers will have seen two major documentaries in five days: On Friday (July 24), CNN’s Fareed Zakaria presented “Donald Trump’s Conspiracy Theories”; at 10 p.m. Tuesday (July 28), PBS’ “Frontline” has “United States of Conspiracy,” focusing on Alex Jones (shown here). Read more…