WASHINGTON—Frontline, the PBS news documentary series, will broadcast “Firestone and the Warlord,” a documentary about the Firestone Natural Rubber Co. plantation in Liberia during that country's seven-year civil war, on Tuesday, Nov. 18.
The 90-minute documentary will be both broadcast and streamed at 10 p.m. that night, according to PBS and ProPublica, the non-profit journalism organization that collaborated with Frontline on the project. The topic of the broadcast will be the relationship between Firestone and Charles Taylor, the revolutionary warlord who later became president of Liberia and was eventually convicted of war crimes.
Bridgestone Americas, the U.S. subsidiary of Bridgestone Corp. which is the parent company of Firestone, said in a statement that its officials haven't yet seen the documentary. It also said it cooperated with Frontline and ProPublica in providing them with information about its actions during the Liberian civil war.
“Our hope is that their focus will be to provide an accurate and factual account of this time in Liberian history and the role Firestone Liberia played,” the company said.