Cover-Up by Laura Poitras with Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter Seymour Hersh

What I love most about Cover-Up, directed by Laura Poitras, is the access it provides to an extraordinarily rare individual, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter Seymour Hersh. A longtime New York Times journalist, author, and whistleblower advocate, Seymour has built his career on exposing power at great personal cost. The behind-the-scenes moments reveal a subject who clearly has a deep, earned relationship with the crew, one built on trust rather than transaction. You can feel that this access exists only because of that bond. Seymour has repeatedly turned down funding and professional growth for the truth, refusing institutional paths that might have softened or silenced his reporting. That conviction is deeply compelling. His fear of power, mistrust of systems, and guarded relationship with people felt honest and human, and it immediately drew me in.

As the hero of the film, Seymour, spends his life building a career around a single guiding principle: telling the truth no matter the consequences. In that pursuit, he uncovers some of the most consequential stories of our time, including covered-up tragedies in Vietnam, the misuse of power by former American presidents, the CIA, FBI (including Richard Nixon and Kissinger), and the ongoing crisis unfolding in Israel and Palestine as we speak. These are stories Americans are curious about, but that power would rather they forget. They are also stories that only a small number of individuals are willing to bring into the light, knowing the professional, legal, and personal risks involved. The film serves as a reminder that journalism at its best is not about access, influence, or growth, but about responsibility.

Cover-Up may be one of my favorite biographical documentaries. The level of access reminded me of what I felt watching Billy Corbin’s Cocaine Cowboys and 30 for 30: The Two Escobars. That kind of intimacy is rare, and speaking from experience, it is incredibly difficult to achieve. When filmmakers are allowed to look directly into a life like this, it should never be taken for granted.

In the closing moments of the film, something unexpected happens. As the documentary moves into subjects Seymour is not comfortable discussing, the film team had gotten access to sources the leak info to Seymour, and he breaks character. The man who has spent his entire life exposing power suddenly becomes unwilling to have his own life exposed. You can see it touch a nerve. He shuts down. That moment is striking in its irony. My instinct was to want to protect him, to shield a man who has done so much good in telling difficult truths. But I also wondered if that instinct was misplaced. Journalism has been his profession, and that profession has placed countless others into the spotlight, often unwillingly. Watching that moment forced me to question whether he should be more comfortable with the process, or whether that discomfort is precisely what makes him who he is.