Vanguard is a television documentary series broadcast on the Current TV television network. Vanguard reported on such issues as the environment, drugs and the effects of globalization and conflict.
The focus of most Vanguard episodes is to explore and immerse viewers in global issues that have a large social significance. Unlike sound-bite driven reporting, the show’s correspondents conduct interviews with affected peoples and the regions involved usually being led by a guide and translator who facilitates access. Since Vanguard's subject matter often involved exposés about organized crime, drug trafficking and armed revolts, the correspondents can face significant danger because of their reporting due to unstable political or security situations.
Vanguard has received some of the media industry’s highest honors for journalism, including the 69th Annual Peabody Award, given for excellence in electronic media, and the 2010 Television Academy Honor, which recognizes "achievements in programming that present issues of concern to our society in a compelling, emotional and insightful way." Vanguard has also been awarded the 2009 Alfred I. duPont-Columbia Award and the 2009 Livingston Award and was nominated four times for a news and documentary Emmy and for a sports Emmy®.
Episode 9 : Marijuana Wars, Part 2
November. 22,2010
Episode 8 : Marijuana Wars, Part 1
November. 15,2010
Episode 7 : Life and Death on the Border
November. 08,2010
Vanguard correspondent Christof Putzel travels to the U.S./Mexico border to investigate one of the most contentious issues in America today: immigration. Meeting with "coyotes," the hired smugglers who offer to take immigrants across the border for a fee, Putzel learns the methods used to evade border patrol and the dangers they face on the journey. Arrest and deportation are inherent risks, but the lack of water and scorching temperatures of the desert crossing are far more deadly. Those who do make it safely across the border face tightening immigration laws and an increasingly hostile public. Putzel ultimately crosses the border with a migrant and coyote.
Episode 6 : American Jihadi
July. 07,2010
Vanguard correspondent Christof Putzel traces the journey of a small town kid from Alabama to Somalia, where as part of Al-Shabaab he is now recruiting young Muslims from the west to wage jihad overseas.
Episode 5 : War Crimes
June. 30,2010
Correspondent Kaj Larsen investigates the alarming rise in the number of soldiers who have been traumatized by war and are now accused of bringing the violence home. Of the more than 2 million men and women who have served in the recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as many as a third of them may now have post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD. A growing number of these vets are being charged with violent crimes, and Kaj travels to prisons and mental health facilities in Arizona, Colorado and Oregon to hear their stories.
Episode 4 : Soccer's Lost Boys
June. 16,2010
Correspondent Mariana van Zeller explores the dark side to the sport's global popularity, what has been called "the new slave trade.
Episode 3 : The World's Toilet Crisis
June. 09,2010
Vanguard correspondent Adam Yamaguchi travels to India, Singapore and Indonesia to understand why people don't use toilets and what's being done to end the practice of open defecation.
Episode 2 : Rape on the Reservation
June. 02,2010
Vanguard correspondent Mariana van Zeller travels to South Dakota to examine the statistic that one in three Native American women will be raped in her lifetime.
Episode 1 : Missionaries of Hate
May. 26,2010
Correspondent Mariana van Zeller travels to Uganda, where many question whether the growing influence of American religious groups has led to a movement to make homosexuality a crime punishable by death. As an anti-gay movement spreads across the continent, gay Africans and their families face an increasingly uncertain future of isolation, imprisonment or even execution.
