January 4, 2026 – Celebrated and reviled, lionized and disdained, Seymour Hersh tries to make the world a better place by exposing the truth, but it never seems to work because we don't learn from history and leaders can no longer be shamed.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who exposed the massacre at My Lai and the torture at Abu Ghraib doesn't like talking about himself, even though he's been extremely successful in both public and private life. This documentary by Academy Award-winning director Laur Poitras and Emmy Award-winning director Mark Obenhaus pushes Hersh past his limits at times.

Hersh is particularly reluctant to expose his sources if they are still alive, and this subject comes up several times during the interviews with him in the movie. Hersh is famously short-tempered and he tells the interviewers to shut off the cameras at one point.

Hersh says he fell into journalism by accident early on, just after falling into the University of Chicago when a junior college teacher recognized his enormous writing talent. Before that, he seemed destined to continue to run the family laundry and dry cleaning business for the rest of his life after his father died. He became a reporter at the City News Bureau of Chicago, a city run by the mob and crooked cops.

He quickly rose through the ranks to work for United Press International and the Associated Press, where his reporting on chemical warfare helped to stop the U.S. biological weapons program. His research into chemical weapons led to his first book. Hersh quit the AP after a fight with his boss.

He said of Pentagon reporters, “You know, these guys get paid an awful lot of money for doing things like listening to the news conference and waiting an hour till the transcript's typed up, and then writing a 500-word story off it. That's what they do all day for a living. That's not very much. I think what you have in America is not so much censorship, but self-censorship by the press.”

Hersh was not good at getting along with his bosses, but he had a knack for making acquaintances and getting them to talk with him. He got to talking with young officers at the Pentagon during lunch breaks and got wind of a big scandal during the Vietnam War. He chased the story down as a freelancer and became the first to break the story of the My Lai massacre, the details of which sickened him. His initial, and followup reports got him the Pulitzer Prize and national recognition, and a lot of detractors as well, who said he made America look bad.

His 1972 book, “Cover-Up: [The Army's Secret Investigation of the Massacre at My Lai 4],” led to his new job at the Washington Bureau of the New York Times, where he broke important stories about the Watergate scandal, engaging in friendly competition with famed Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, who first broke the story.

Hersch went on to write about more government scandals, including the secret bombing of Cambodia and the CIA's campaign to overthrow the government of Chile, and secret CIA spying of at least 10,000 Americans in violation of the CIA's charter. The New York Times was fine with all of this, but it balked at publishing stories based on investigations into activities at a huge company, Gulf and Western by Hersh and Jeff Gerth.

Feeling constrained again by his editors, he quit the Times and started working on book projects, as well as writing numerous high-profile articles in the New Yorker magazine. Currently, he is writing on Substack. Despite widespread acclaim and winning numerous prizes, some of his reporting practices, including the use of anonymous sources (and sometimes not enough sources) has drawn criticism, and that is covered in the documentary as well.

The movie reveals Hersh to be a fascinating character, and a resourceful, relentless pursuer of truth. It is also an exploration of Hersh's “process” for finding, researching and developing news stories. Everyone who calls himself a reporter should watch this movie. This movie rates an A.

Click here for links to places to buy or rent this movie in digital formats, or to buy the soundtrack, posters, books, even used videos, games, electronics and lots of other stuff (no extra charges apply). I suggest you shop at least two of these places before buying anything. Prices seem to vary continuously. For more information on this film, click on this link to The Internet Movie Database. Type in the name of the movie in the search box and press enter. You will be able to find background information on the film, the actors, and links to much more information.

Copyright © 2026 Robert Roten. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

Robert Roten can be reached via e-mail at