Courtesy Conde Nast Entertainment
Most folks take for granted their access to journalism, and notably somewhere in there, the local press. In a new documentary from Jesus Camp directors Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady, however, a global picture emerges of an industry and, in some places, constitutional right under fire, both at home and abroad.
The Ronan Farrow-produced Endangered opens brief but poignant windows into the work of journalists in America, Brazil and Mexico, three countries with governments that ostensibly tout freedom while bandying about terms like “fake news” and “enemy of the people” when it comes to the press. In the end, Ewing and Grady show a tragically declining line of work across multiple scopes, which we know will ultimately hurt communities—but the sad truth is that there might not be satisfying answers. The press is dying, friends, and that should alarm everyone.
In Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro watchdog Patrícia Campos Mello of the paper Folho de São Paolo faces lawsuits and a steady stream of misogynistic memes while back in America, Guardian journo Oliver Laughland, a British ex-pat, follows Trump on the 2020 campaign trail while simultaneously covering Youngstown, Ohio—America’s largest city without a single community paper. Miami Herald photog Carl Juste shoots protests that flared up following the 2020 police murder of George Floyd and, later, the January 6 insurrection, while Mexican photographer Sáshenka Gutiérrez of Agenica EFE finds herself documenting COVID-19 in Mexico City at a time her government was denying any serious fallout from the deadly virus. She even winds up getting tear gassed while covering a women’s rights protest turned immediately violent by riot cops.
And so it goes, which really ought to fire viewers up, though one can’t help but think that most care less and less for journalism. As a midwest woman says to Laughland in the doc, some people just aren’t going to read papers that don’t fully adhere to their views. That’s frustrating enough, but tack on how the job can be dangerous...each reporter says as much, then they jump back into the fray.
That does feel heroic, though Endangered doesn’t give a deep enough view into any of its subjects’ work as to feel truly meaningful. It comes across almost like a documentary for other journalists to scream “Yeah!” at, a sort of liberal-leaning told-ya-so sort of thing that very likely will not change minds. Most folks know the demeaning ways the public views journalists, this isn’t new. But if the point of this doc is to make a case for people to subscribe, donate or otherwise engage with multiple sources of local and national media, the argument doesn’t feel strong enough.
7
+Could open some eyes; some amazing footage
-Could have gone much deeper; emotionally draining
Endangered
Directed by Ewing and Grady
HBO Max, TV-MA, 90 min.
