COVER-UP follows the explosive career of Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter Seymour Hersh in a gripping political powderkeg that exposes systematic violence and a long- standing cycle of unity within the U.S. military intelligence agencies.
With unprecedented access to Hersh’s notes, primary documents and archival footage, this film reveals the relentless pursuit of truth- and the cost of uncovering it. COVER-UP is a portrait of a relentless journalist and an indictment of institutional violence, produced and directed by Laura Poitras and Mark Obenhaus that looks at the My Lai Massacre during the Vietnam War and the Abu Ghraib torture scandal during the Iraq War, both committed by the U.S.Army. The film premiered out of a competition by the 82nd Venice International Film Festival on August 29, 2025.
The premise of COVER-UP is a sit-down with American journalist Seymour Hersh who hesitantly agrees to discuss his career, providing unprecedented access to his body of work.The film follows the exposing of U.S. War crimes during the Vietnam War, the secret bombing of Cambodia; the Watergate Scandal; the CIA,’s program of domestic spying; and the torture and abuse of prisoners during the U.S War on Terror. The film incorporates archival audio recordings of Richard Nixon discussing Hersh with Henry Kissinger.
In 2004, Laura Poitras had the idea of making a documentary following Seymour Hersh in real time as he met with sources, at meetings at the New Yorker, however Hersh was against the idea as it would be risky for the sources, and he did not want to talk about himself. Despite this, Potras and Hersh remained in touch over the years. Following the completion of ALL THE BEAUTY and THE BLOODSHED, Poitras reached out, who suggested she speak with Mark Obenhaus, as Obenhaus had been waiting to enter production on a film revolving around Hersh’s reporting on the My Lai Massacre, which struggled to find financing.
Poitras and Obenhaus decided to collaborate, with Hersh allowing Obenhaus and Poitras, alongside archival producers access to his archive which amassed over 7000 assets. Obenhaus and Poitras, alongside producer Olivia Streisand, spent three months creating a proof-of-concept for the film and figuring out how to work together. ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN and the PARALLEX VIEW were among inspirations for the the film’s tone. The documentary also addresses controversies in Hersh’s career, including his 1997 book THE DARKER SIDE OF CAMELOT, from which he removed a chapter based on letters later revealed to be forgeries.
A Chicago native, Hersh grew up helping his father run a laundry and dry cleaning business while enrolled at a 2-year college, where an English teacher noticed Hersh’s talent for writing and insisted he apply to the Univ of Chicago. Hersh made a name first himself with a 1969 Dispatch News Service investigation that exposed the My Lai Massacre, in which the U.S Army tried to cover up an incident of troops killing hundreds of Vietnamese civilians. Myrtle Meadlo of New Goshen, Indianapolis, the mother of Paul Meadlo, who was involved in the killings, told Hersh, “I sent them a good boy, and they made him a murderer.” The story galvanised the Anti -War Movement, and it won the 1970 Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting.
Although Washington Post’s Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein are household names for the Watergate coverage, Hersh was in the thick of it too. His reporting revealed that the Burglars-Plumbers, as they were called, were in fact paid and even when indicted, they were still being paid.
The documentary ends with Hersh explaining why he doggedly follows cover-ups at 88 years of age, working with an editor and facts checker at Substack. In an era where journalists are falsely accused of producing fake news, the film makers hope COVER-UP inspires public funders of journalism to see the value of investigative work and inspire the next generation of journalists to keep asking the tough questions.
