‘Cover-Up’

You can’t talk about the history of investigative reporting in America without talking about Seymour Hersh, the muckraker extraordinaire who helped bring stories ranging from the details behind the My Lai Massacre in Vietnam to the abuses happening at Abu Gharib prison into the broader public conversation. Filmmaker Laura Poitras (Citizenfour, All the Beauty and the Bloodshed) covers the necessary biographical ground and delves into a handful of stories that helped make Hersh’s name, yet she also pays plentiful attention to his process — it’s as much a paean to old-school shoe-leather journalism as it is a piece on one legend’s legacy. And the subtext regarding the need for such a figure in a time when so many media companies are cowering to power is right there, in 21-sized bold font.