Cover-Up: Screening and Discussion

He's devoted his career to uncovering stories the powerful want buried. Dig into the life's work of journalist Seymour Hersh.

Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism

<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CxEnECKs9U" title="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CxEnECKs9U" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Cover-Up</a> is a political thriller that traces the explosive career of Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter Seymour Hersh. Urgent and deeply reported, Cover-Up is both a portrait of a relentless journalist and an indictment of institutional violence — revealing a cycle of impunity in the U.S. military and intelligence agencies. Drawing on exclusive access to Hersh’s notes, and interweaving primary documents and archival footage, Cover-Up captures the power and process of investigative journalism.The screening will be followed by a conversation with Seymour Hersh, Reporter, and Laura Poitras, Director, Producer and Editor, moderated by Azmat Khan, Director, Simon and June Li Center for Global Journalism.This event is co-sponsored by the <a href="https://journalism.columbia.edu/li-center" title="https://journalism.columbia.edu/li-center" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Simon and June Li Center for Global Journalism</a> and the <a href="https://journalism.columbia.edu/ms-investigative-specialization" title="https://journalism.columbia.edu/ms-investigative-specialization" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Toni Stabile Center for Investigative Journalism</a> at Columbia University, the <a href="https://freedom.press" title="https://freedom.press" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Freedom of the Press Foundation</a>, <a href="https://www.ire.org/" title="https://www.ire.org/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Investigative Reporters and Editors</a>, and the <a href="https://opcofamerica.org/" title="https://opcofamerica.org/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Overseas Press Club</a>.February 2, 2026, 6:00pm - 8:30pmColumbia Journalism School Pulitzer Hall, Lecture Hall, 3rd Floor 2950 Broadway New York, NY 10027Registration required.___________________________________________________________________________________________________Seymour Hersh is a reporter. His journalism has won a Pulitzer Prize, five George Polk Awards, two National Magazine Awards, and more than a dozen other prizes for investigative reporting. Hersh has worked at the AP, The New York Times, The New Yorker, and written eleven books. His 1967 reporting on Chemical &amp; Biological Weapons led in part to the Nixon administration’s public declaration to end the U.S. CBW program. In 1969, he gained worldwide recognition for exposing the My Lai massacre and its cover-up during the Vietnam War, for which he received the Pulitzer Prize for international reporting.He became one of the few U.S. journalists to report from Hanoi. He was then recruited to the NYTimes. During Watergate he wrote five front-page exposés in one week. His reporting on the “Family Jewels” led to the Church Committee and the Rockefeller Commission, and a public accounting for some of the CIA’s abuses. His reporting at the NYTimes on covert U.S. Navy operations led Dick Cheney – then a top aide to President Gerald Ford – to propose that the FBI search Hersh’s home and his sources’ homes to interfere with their reporting.Hersh left the NYTimes in 1979 to write his book “The Price of Power: Kissinger in the Nixon White House” which won him the National Book Critics Circle Award. In the 80’s he published freelance and wrote books, including the award-winning “The Samson Option, Israel’s Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy.”In 1993 Hersh became a regular contributor to The New Yorker. In the 90s he covered corporate corruption and the Gulf War for the New Yorker. His piece on the “Highway of Death” massacre in the final days of the Gulf War is the longest piece the magazine has published since 1993; Hersh conducted 300 interviews including soldiers who witnessed the killings. While at the New Yorker Hersh won a National Magazine Award for Public Interest for his 2003 articles “Lunch with the Chairman,” “Selective Intelligence,” and “The Stovepipe.”In 2004, Hersh exposed the Abu Ghraib prison scandal in a series of pieces in the magazine; following that reporting he again received a National Magazine Award for Public Interest, an Overseas Press Club Award, the National Press Foundation’s Kiplinger Distinguished Contributions to Journalism Award, and his fifth George Polk Award, making him that award’s most honored laureate.In an echo to the days of Dispatch News, Hersh is now publishing on his Substack, making headlines with his reporting on the destruction of the Nordstream pipeline, and his reporting on the U.S. bombing of Iran’s Fordo nuclear complex.Laura Poitras is an Academy Award and Pulitzer Prize-winning filmmaker and journalist. Her last film, All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, premiered at the 2022 Venice International Film Festival where it won the Golden Lion for best film. The story of groundbreaking artist Nan Goldin, the film was nominated for an Academy Award and BAFTA, and won an Independent Spirit Award. Poitras’ film CITIZENFOUR won an Academy Award for Best Documentary, along with awards from BAFTA and DGA. Her journalism exposing the National Security Agency’s global mass surveillance programs received the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service, as well as the George Polk award for National Security Reporting. Her Academy Award-nominated film My Country, My Country, the first film in her post-9/11 Trilogy, documented the U.S. occupation of Iraq. The Whitney Museum of American Art exhibited her first solo show of film installations, Astro Noise, in 2016. She is a 2012 MacArthur Fellow. She has also received a Peabody Award, Guggenheim Fellowship, and grants from the Sundance Institute, Creative Capital, Vital Projects Fund, Cinereach, and others. In 2006, the U.S. government placed her on a terrorist watchlist and afterward detained and interrogated her dozens of times at the U.S. border.Azmat Khan is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist whose accountability reporting has exposed the vast civilian toll of U.S. wars. She is the Patti Cadby Birch Assistant Professor of Journalism at Columbia Journalism School, where she also leads the Simon and June Li Center for Global Journalism.Columbia University makes every effort to accommodate individuals with disabilities. If you require disability accommodations to attend this event, please contact the Office of Disability Services at 212-854-2388 or <a href="https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cruel-punishment-and-lethal-restraint-policing-in-the-us-tickets-1013992497857?aff=oddtdtcreator" title="https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cruel-punishment-and-lethal-restraint-policing-in-the-us-tickets-1013992497857?aff=oddtdtcreator" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">disability@columbia.edu</a> at least 10 days in advance of the event. Requests for CART (Communication Access Realtime Translation) or sign language interpretation require two weeks’ notice.

Our {communityGuidelinesLink} describe the sort of content we prohibit on Eventbrite. If you suspect an event may be in violation, you can report it to us so we can investigate.

To report other categories of prohibited or illegal content, submit {link}

Cover-Up: Screening and Discussion

More events from this organizer

Follow organizers to get events picked for you

Cover-Up: Screening and Discussion

More events from this organizer

Follow organizers to get events picked for you

You might also like...

Browse more events with different dates, prices, and formats to find your next great experience.