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14,200 individual supporters
Readers and viewers who back the work on Kickstarter and Patreon across three rounds, contributing a combined $3.8M in unrestricted production funds.
The receipts are public.
The archive is open.
The reporting continues.
Impact, for this newsroom, is not a trophy case. It is the volume of footage we are willing to leave unlocked, the number of countries we have physically entered, and the number of viewers who stayed until the last frame.
By the numbers · 2018 – present
Seven numbers. Seven years. One independent newsroom.
These figures are drawn from production logs, grant disbursements, Kickstarter and Patreon records, and our open archive index. They are not estimates.
- 47 Countries filmed on location since 2018
- 43 Episodes released across six seasons
- 38hrs Of finished, broadcast-ready film
- 1,800+ hrs Of source-verified Creative Commons archive
- 187,000 Subscribers to Dispatches from the Frontline
- 14,200 Individual crowdfunders across three rounds
- $3.8M Raised on Kickstarter, Patreon, and grants
- 89 Countries reached in 14 subtitled languages
A note from the newsroom
“Impact, for us, is not the trophy on the shelf. The Peabody is welcome. What matters more is the 1,800 hours of raw footage we publish under Creative Commons every season — the same files our editors use to cut the episode. If a researcher in Beirut, a prosecutor in The Hague, or a student in Quito can pull a timestamped clip and cite it, the work has done what journalism is supposed to do.”
Maren Vasquez & Idris Okonkwo
Founders, The Frontline Movie Project
Open archive · Creative Commons
1,800+ hours of source-verified footage — open to the public.
A selection of stills drawn from our open archive, all timestamped, all re-cleasable for non-commercial use with attribution. Read the licensing terms →
In the press
What the press has said about the model.
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The Guardian March 2024 · Review
“A newsroom that has chosen to publish its raw footage under Creative Commons is, by definition, a newsroom that wants to be cited — and held accountable. The result is some of the most defensible conflict footage on the open web.”
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Foreign Policy October 2023 · Long Read
“Frontline Movie's crew enters places most news organizations have already written off as inaccessible. What they bring back is not just footage — it is a chain of custody that a court could use.”
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Columbia Journalism Review January 2024 · Industry Profile
“If you are looking for a working model of independent conflict journalism funded by readers rather than states, this is the closest thing the field has to a template.”
Who keeps the cameras in the field
A sustained funding base — not a one-off stunt.
The cameras travel because three layers of support cover the bill. Each one is listed publicly in our annual financial disclosure.
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Institutional grants
Project-based grants from the Pulitzer Center, the Ford Foundation, and Reporters Without Borders — awarded to specific episodes, never to the newsroom as a whole.
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Distribution partners
Al Jazeera English, DW, and ARTE carry the series into 89 countries across 14 subtitled languages, returning a share of broadcast licensing to production.