Our New Season Begins With “Scammed.” It’s the First of Many In-Depth Investigations to Come.

Sept. 29, 2026, marks the start of FRONTLINE’s 45th season of investigative documentaries on PBS.

I’ve been thinking a lot about how fortunate we are to continue doing this work, with a community that values accountability journalism standing behind us. I hope you’ll find that our reporting this season delivers on the trust you place in us, starting with the premiere tonight of a documentary that’s been more than a year in the making.

It’s called Scammed, a joint investigation with The Associated Press, and it’s an eye-opening look at the explosive rise of online scams — something experts described to us as an epidemic — and the people, companies and technologies that have enabled it.

This 90-minute documentary airs at a special time, 9/8c, on PBS and will also be available to stream. What director Peter Klein and reporters Martha Mendoza, Erika Kinetz and Juliet Linderman found is stark: The online scam industry’s growth has been powered in many cases by organized crime, trafficked labor, American technology, and, increasingly, AI — and governments and law enforcement have struggled to fight back.

The Wall Street Journal describes the film as “a horror story in progress, a cautionary tale, and the kind of news you can use.” It is part of a joint, multiplatform investigation that also includes text stories and Inside the Scam, a digital interactive that explores four different types of scams, tactics used to manipulate victims, and red flags to watch out for.

This is the first of many in-depth investigative projects you’ll see from FRONTLINE this season. We’re among the 24 media organizations behind “The Deportation Project,” an ongoing, cross-border investigation organized by Forbidden Stories that launched this month. It probes the Trump administration’s use of third-country removals, in which people are deported to countries where they’re not citizens and have no ties. You can follow our partners’ reporting at pbs.org/frontline, and our related documentary will air later this season.

We’re also taking a closer look at how the administration’s policies are impacting the Haitian community in the U.S., who’ve lost their protected status and face dire conditions in their own country. And we have upcoming investigations on the resurgence of measles and the debate over vaccines; the worsening health problems for coal miners, which we have been following with NPR since 2018; the war with Iran; homelessness in the U.S.; and the rapidly evolving promises and perils of AI.

Some of these projects stem from reporting we’ve been doing for years; following people and issues across time is something we are especially privileged to be able to do at FRONTLINE.

You may remember Israa, a young Syrian refugee, from our 2016 documentary Exodus. Now, our Sundance award-winning feature documentary One in a Million chronicles her story across more than a decade — from fleeing the war ​with her family as a girl, to navigating adolescence and a new culture in Germany, to returning to her home of Aleppo as an adult. A co-production with BBC Storyville, One in a Million will be released in theaters next month as part of our FRONTLINE FEATURES initiative and will later have its broadcast premiere on PBS.

And next month, with the midterms approaching, we’ll bring you a third installment of American Voices — our documentary project following the changing views and experiences of American voters from the start of the COVID pandemic in 2020 to today.

But first, tune in on PBS or online as Scammed kicks off our new season. The documentary will be available to watch Sept. 29 at 9/8c on PBS stations (check local listings) and on FRONTLINE’s YouTube channel, or starting at 7/6c at pbs.org/frontline and in the PBS App.

Thank you for watching, and for continuing to believe in the power of tough, independent and rigorously-vetted journalism.

 

• Raney Aronson-Rath Editor-in-Chief and Executive Producer, FRONTLINE