It was probably disappointing at the time that Laura Poitras first asked Seymour Hersh to do a documentary about his reportage in 2005 that he declined, promising her that he’d talk when he was ready but no sooner. At the height of the U.S. response to 9/11 led to invasions into Afghanistan and Iraq, there’s no doubt the film would’ve been timely, particularly when Hersh was the one to break the story about the atrocities committed by American troops at Abu Ghraib. But “Cover-Up” couldn’t feel any more relevant now as Hersh, still very much active as a reporter, looks back at a career of challenging the official government narrative, showing a resolve in telling unpopular truths as Poitras and co-director Mark Obenhaus illustrate how the work Hersh has done emboldened others to amplify stories that would likely be swept under the rug otherwise.
When Hersh has shown diligence at connecting the dots, “Cover-Up” honors who he is from the start by presenting the spread of the story that launched his career with similar meticulousness, sussing out the bombshell of the My Lai Massacre when he overheard a soldier had killed over a hundred civilians in Vietnam. Without even a name of the soldier, Hersh wouldn’t let go of the question of whether the army had given an order for the attack and soon had all the details on William Calley, who was responsible, and despite disinterest from most major outlets, found a home for the reporting in some regional newspapers with the help of a colleague that would soon lead to other outlets reporting on it themselves and put pressure on the government to come clean about their involvement. Hersh muses aloud, “I think here in America, there is not censorship, but self-censorship in the press” as he recalls trying to figure out how to report on Vietnam when all the official government sources were claiming nothing was amiss and to question it was thought by the media at large to jeopardize access and be dismissed as unpatriotic by the general public.
Hersh wouldn’t need to be interrupted by a call from someone who just got back from the Gaza Strip to make the present-day parallels clear, though he is, still working his sources that he’s developed over decades. (A glimpse of his Rolodex reveals a card for the late Daniel Ellsberg of Pentagon Papers’ fame with at least a dozen different numbers from over the years, suggesting how all his reporting has built on top of itself.) His affable but occasionally combative demeanor with Poitras and Obenhaus, who worked with Hersh on investigative docs for “Frontline,” appears to answer a question the two pose upfront about why sources talk to him – while he says he won’t psychoanalyze either them or himself, the seriousness he treats any subject as well as a wry personable nature that puts people at ease is on full display. As Hersh explains, his way with people is what led to him being chosen to taking care of the family store when his father took ill and his twin brother left for college while he educated himself with whatever books he could get his hands on locally and a thirst for knowledge led to eventually producing the first draft of history for others.
While the media is often treated as a monolith,“Cover-Up” reminds that journalism is an individual human endeavor, both in Hersh relating how he built up the credibility to report on major stories such as the Watergate break-in, and the occasional tetchiness of the conversation that he has with Poitras and Obenhaus in which they have to earn his trust for him to talk, worrying he’s given them too much at various points in the film. He also is seen as fallible, having his occasional mistakes in overrelying on sources used against him to call into question any later, unrelated story – his investigation into some correspondence between Marilyn Monroe and JFK that turned out to be forged becomes a flashpoint – and although the film rarely leaves Hersh as an interview, the efforts to stop him can be felt throughout as he describes ending his run at the New York Times when he was led to look into their corporate files and appearances in call-in shows had strangers wishing for him to be deported. However, as “Cover-Up” employs Hersh to present a country that even without institutional resistance may want to tune out uncomfortable truths, Poitras and Obenhaus deliver a film where it’s impossible not to want to lean in and listen, riveting as much as it is revelatory.
“Cover-Up” will screen again at the Toronto Film Festival at the Scotiabank on September 11th at 8:45 pm and September 14th at 12:15 pm.