Netflix Releases Seymour Hersh Documentary

- The film is co-directed by Mark Obenhaus and Laura Poitras, who won an Academy Award for her 2014 documentary "Citizenfour" about NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. Poitras reportedly spent two decades trying to convince Hersh to participate in a documentary. - Beyond the My Lai massacre, the documentary examines Hersh's other major scoops, including his 1970s reporting on the secret U.S. bombing of Cambodia and illegal domestic spying by the CIA. - The film also delves into Hersh's 2004 exposé for *The New Yorker* on the torture and abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib in Iraq, which was substantiated by a secret U.S. Army report and graphic photographs. - "Cover-Up" provides insight into Hersh's methods by drawing on his personal archives of over 7,000 assets, including handwritten notes and recordings. It features the first-ever public identification of the woman who supplied the Abu Ghraib photos, Camille Lo Sapio, who discovered them on a returned laptop. - Hersh was a reluctant subject and, at one point, threatened to quit the project over concerns that the filmmakers had access to sensitive names in his notes, highlighting his fierce protection of sources. - The documentary also addresses controversies from Hersh's career, including his use of anonymous sources and a chapter in his 1997 book, "The Dark Side of Camelot," that was based on letters later revealed to be forgeries. - For his My Lai investigation, Hersh, then a freelancer, independently tracked down and interviewed Army Lieutenant William L. Calley, who was charged with the murder of 109 civilians. The story was initially rejected by major outlets like *Life* magazine before being published by the small Dispatch News Service. - The film follows Hersh's career into the present day, noting that his more recent and controversial reporting on topics like the Syrian Civil War and the Nord Stream pipeline explosion is now primarily published on the platform Substack.