PRESS RELEASE:

Producer Tom Curran and reporter Mark Trahant examine a little-known chapter of the Catholic Church sex abuse story -- decades of abuse of Native Americans by priests and church workers in Alaska. Frontline "The Silence" airs Tuesday, April 19 at 9:00 p.m. on KUED Channel 7.

The isolation of the villages and the absolute authority of the church over the Native population created an atmosphere where molestation could go unchecked and unreported.

In the second half hour of the program, Frontline reairs "Flying Cheaper," a January 2011 investigation into the outsourcing of major airline repair work to lower-cost independent maintenance operations in the U.S. and abroad. Closing the hour will be a news update on "Flying Cheaper" from correspondent Miles O'Brien, as well as a follow-up on the story of Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei, who was taken into custody by government authorities days after Frontline's March 29 newsmagazine profile of him, as part of a larger crackdown on artists, bloggers, and human-rights advocates.