Need to Know

Friday, September 3, 8:30 p.m

NEED TO KNOW is a cross-media news and public affairs magazine that culls stories from the best of the week’s online reporting, culminating in a one-hour on-air broadcast every Friday night on PBS. The program will feature documentary-style reports, short features, studio-based interviews and more. NEED TO KNOW will cover five primary news beats: the economy; the environment and energy; health; national security; and culture.

Nature

Drakensberg: Barrier of Spears

Sunday, September 5, 8:00 p.m

The Drakensberg Mountains are southern Africa’s Alps, rising more than 11,000 feet into the sky. But beneath their shimmering beauty lies an incredibly hostile environment for the surprising number of creatures that manage to live there. Each spring, drenching rains destroy the grasslands at the base of the mountains, and those who would survive must climb straight up sheer cliffs of volcanic rock, through gauntlets of storms and snow, to reach the carpets of grass on the plateau. The baboons that make this astonishing annual journey may have the advantage of agility, but eland, the world’s largest antelope, have long, spindly legs and heavy bodies, which make the climb all but unbelievable. All have babies at their sides. And the vultures circle overhead.

Make No Little Plans

Daniel Burnham and the American City

Monday, September 6, 10:00 p.m

Few dreamers have had more impact on the American city than Daniel Hudson Burnham. He built some of the first skyscrapers in the world; directed construction of the World’s Columbian Exposition that helped inspire the City Beautiful Movement in towns across America; and created urban plans for San Francisco, Washington, DC, Chicago, Cleveland and Manila and Baguio City in the Philippines all before the modern profession of urban planning existed. MAKE NO LITTLE PLANS: DANIEL BURNHAM AND THE AMERICAN CITY is the first film to explore Burnham’s fascinating career and complex legacy as public debate continues today about how and for whom cities are planned.