Poitras film at Venice spotlights Seymour Hersh's battles with US power

VENICE: “Cover-Up”, a documentary chronicling the career of U.S. investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, premiered at the Venice Film Festival on Friday, offering a portrait of a reporter whose work has exposed some of America’s darkest secrets.

Directed by Oscar-winner Laura Poitras and longtime collaborator Mark Obenhaus, the film traces Hersh’s rise from helping out at his family’s dry-cleaning business to breaking news that repeatedly shook the U.S. establishment.

“My work tends to follow troublemakers, people who speak truth to power, like Sy (Hersh),” said Poitras, who won the coveted Golden Lion award at Venice in 2022 for her documentary about activist photographer Nan Goldin.

Hersh made his name internationally for breaking news in 1969 about the massacre of South Vietnamese villagers by U.S. troops in the hamlet of My Lai, which was credited with helping end the Vietnam War.

He also wrote critically acclaimed books on the 1983 Soviet downing of a South Korean passenger jet, Israel’s nuclear arms program, and abuses of inmates at Baghdad’s Abu Ghraib prison by American soldiers during the U.S. occupation of Iraq.

The film, which is playing out of competition at Venice, follows the ups and downs of his career in which he has often worked as a scrappy outsider seeking to uncover secrets of the U.S. military and intelligence agencies.

Still active at the age of 88, Hersh said he was surprised how few reporters were willing to challenge authority in the United States despite years of high-level scandal and abuse.

“There is still integrity in America right now, but we are in … an existential crisis,” Hersh told the same press conference, adding that he was determined to investigate U.S. President Donald Trump.

“I don’t have the kind of access to him (I need), but I am working on it,” he said.

Poitras said it was vital to keep on seeking the truth: “We have to believe there are tipping points that can change the direction we’re going. We have to stand up and fight.”

Archival footage, Hersh’s personal notebooks, and interviews highlight his meticulous reporting process and unyielding protection of confidential sources — an obsession that spills over into the film as he challenges the directors on what they extracted from his notes.

Hersh’s feisty character emerged at the press conference as he refused to be drawn on the personal toll his reporting had taken on him.

“I don’t care what the question is,” he said, prompting co-director Obenhaus to say: “You are getting a glimpse of what it was like to edit Sy Hersh.”