Laura Poitras was smart to stay out of the limelight so long. Her flowering emergence into the mainstream media sphere has been perfectly timed and her diligent work ultimately rewarded with “CitizenFour” earning the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature at the 2015 Academy Awards. But as soon as one sticks their head up above the parapet they are instantly subject to organised, concerted detractors, waiting to punish them for it. It appears Poitras is no exception.
The long-standing publication Counterpunch has some amazing work under its belt — especially pertinent is its reporting surrounding information gleaned from the outcome of the Partnership for Civil Justice FBI FOIA requests in the wake of the Occupy movement. To citizen journalists in the movement, the name Counterpunch was synonymous with fearless and intrepid political journalism.
It could be counted on to provide cutting-edge counter-narrative to the political mainstream. Yet with recent attempts to debunk the work of Glenn Greenwald, Edward Snowden and now Laura Poitras, Counterpunch seems to have shifted its critical focus from major political figures to those whose work exposes them.