FRONTLINE ONLINE: SAVING JOURNALISM ONE WEEK AT A TIME

The hard-hitting network TV news program has been dead and buried for years, replaced with salacious, tawdry infotainment shows that more often than not focus on missing blonde co-eds and lurid murder cases. That's where Frontline steps in to reclaim broadcast journalism; it's one of the best reasons to watch PBS, or if you prefer, PBS Online.

Well before NBC and ABC were fiddling around with iTunes, trying to figure out what content to make available on the web, when and for how much, Public Television was making Frontline's award-winning documentaries free and available to anyone with an internet connection to view on their website.

Following in the footsteps of such landmark journalistic programs as Edward R. Murrow's "See It Now," Frontline is the last bastion of committed television journalism, "producing more hours of documentary programming than all the commercial networks combined," as its website declares.

If watching PBS sounds old or boring – something only your grandparents would do – check out these must-see documentaries, from "The Last Abortion Clinic", "The Torture Question", and the special 3-part "Country Boys", to more recent, essential, thoroughly reported and topical chronicles "Return of the Taliban", "The Enemy Within" and this week's upcoming broadcast "The Lost Year in Iraq."

Winner of every major broadcast journalism award, Frontline dares to show what the mainstream networks cannot.