In the Netflix documentary Cover-Up, filmmakers Laura Poitras and Mark Obenhaus explore the career of Seymour “Sy” Hersh, who infamously exposed a number of chilling top-secret operations, including My Lai, Abu Ghraib, and the CIA spying domestically.
Awards Buzz spoke with Poitras and Obenhaus about collaborating and how they bring their own approaches to this work. Obenhaus reflected on this film as an important educational tool:
“One of the things that struck me in traveling with the film and talking to people about it is that a lot of people are just not really aware of what an investigative journalist does. They say journalism, journalists, investigative, these are categories. I think we highlight this category, which is investigative journalism, where digging and time spent yields results. For some people who have seen the film, it’s enlightening as to the role of investigative journalists in our country and globally. I’ve found that surprising, the number of people who have not quite understood what investigative journalism is. Hopefully this is a tutorial, if you will.”
Asked whether there’s any hope for the future of investigative journalism, Poitras was resolute that there is:
“We’re not willing to concede hope. We still have journalists who are willing to put everything on the line. I’m thinking about Julie Brown, who is the journalist who really broke open the Epstein story. It’s because of her, that she understood something was strange about how his case was handled and broke it open, and that’s how we know about it, because of a great investigative journalist. We have investigative journalists who are being imprisoned around the world, investigative journalists who are being assassinated, so journalists are willing to do their job. I’m not willing to concede that journalists will not continue to do the work. I’m very concerned about institutions supporting it.”
Cover-Up streams on Netflix on December 26th.
