“Frontline,” PBS’ flagship investigative series produced by WGBH in Boston, has secured two new grants that will go toward a major expansion of investigative reporting across all the show’s platforms.
The first grant, $5 million from Jon and Jo Ann Hagler, is the single largest gift by an individual to “Frontline” in the show’s 30-year history. The majority of that will go toward a new endowment for continuing journalism. The second donation is a two-year, $800,000 grant from the Ford Foundation that will go toward a new cross-platform Enterprise Journalism Group.
“These two gifts are a vote of confidence in FRONTLINE’s ambitions for the future,” executive producer David Fanning said in a statement. “’We know that to keep doing significant investigative reporting we have to undertake a major effort to raise additional funds for the time-intensive and costly work of enterprise journalism. The generosity of the Haglers and new support from the Ford Foundation is an expression of optimism about the future of the series and the kind of journalism we practice, and need to keep expanding.”