Drowned in the Stream: How investigative documentaries came to face extinction

Hard-hitting filmmaker Amy Ziering on why journalistic documentaries are facing extinction.

By Peter Hong, for Capital & Main

Amy Ziering is a documentary filmmaker whose intention is to inspire action. Her 2012 examination of sexual assault in the military, “The Invisible War,” was credited by both Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta for inspiring changes in military policies regarding sexual assault cases.

Ziering and her documentary partner Kirby Dick took on campus sexual assault in their 2015 documentary “The Hunting Ground,” followed in 2018 by “The Bleeding Edge” for Netflix. Probing hazards in the medical device industry, “The Bleeding Edge” won the George Polk Award for medical reporting. Ziering and Dick again focused on sexual abuse allegations in “On the Record,” which looked at accusations against Def Jam co-founder Russell Simmons, and their 2021 HBO series “Allen vs. Farrow” examined allegations against Woody Allen by his adopted daughter Dylan Farrow. In 2022 Ziering and Dick directed the four-part HBO Max series “Not So Pretty,” about the harmful effects of widely used beauty products.

Yet despite Ziering’s success making investigative documentaries, she now sees her craft in danger. Economic pressures and cultural shifts like the shortening of attention spans have made media companies more risk averse, Ziering said. She thinks it is increasingly difficult for films like hers to be made today.

Ziering spoke with Capital & Main about the recent changes that could spell the end for investigative news documentaries.