Truth Seekers Summit 2024

  The 2024 Truth Seekers Summit, presented by Paramount+, took place last Thursday in New York City and was a significant event in the media industry. It focused on the art of documentary filmmaking and investigative journalism. Organized by Rolling Stone and Variety, the summit gathered an impressive roster of speakers, including notable journalists, documentarians, and public figures known for their commitment to uncovering the truth.

With Election Day a few months away and a tense political cycle involving a candidate that brought the term “fake news” into the American lexicon, the Summit was fitting to kick off with the “Politics in the Zeitgeist” panel. Featuring political correspondents Abby Phillip (CNN), Yamiche Alcindor (NBC News), Katy Tur (MSNBC), Tony Dokoupil (CBS), and Geoff Bennett (PBS), the panel discussion—led by Variety’s co-editor-in-chief, Ramin Setoodeh—centered on the frosty relationship between journalist and former President Donald Trump, who has a history of stretching the truth. “He is very magnetic, he’s very charming, and when he doesn’t think he can charm you any longer, he’ll get very angry, and that’s when he starts to attack,” Tur said. “He got clued in very early on that going after us, making us the enemy, was exactly what his crowd wanted.” Phillip furthered Tur’s assessment of the 2024 Republican nominee. “He tries to charm people in private—not just with reporters, but with a lot of people around him,” Phillip said. “Covering him for the years that I did, my general rule of thumb about asking Trump questions is ‘just go for it.’ Because you never know when he’s going to just answer the question or answer the question with a degree of candor that might be truthful or damaging to him.”

Following that political gathering was a fireside chat with the President of See It Now Studios at CBS News, Susan Zirinsky, and she talked about her career, her upcoming documentary We Will Dance Again, which examines the October 7^th Hamas terror attack (“This is about truth. This documentary will be one of the records of history.”), and creative limitations she faces. When asked if she has more freedom to create on streaming platforms as opposed to broadcast networks, Zirinsky emphatically replied, “F**k yes. You are allowed to let the moment and moments of crisis play out in real time.”

A keynote conversation with Oscar-winning documentarian Alex Gibney was next at the Truth Seekers Summit. Sitting down with Rolling Stone’s CEO, Gus Wenner, the two chronicled his impressive film career and his new documentary, Wise Guy: David Chase and the Sopranos. “It seemed to me that there was something really important about doing the origin story of The Sopranos right now,” said Gibney about the beloved and iconic mafia series. “Because it seemed like when David was making The Sopranos, it wasn’t something that any of the network TV executives wanted to hear about. But they found a way with this fledgling network, HBO, to once again engage that conversation between filmmakers and audiences. So, I thought that’s a really good story. And it turned out that the details of the story were even better in terms of how it got made, who was cast, and all that.” Gibney also hinted that fans would “have to wait to see the documentary” when there will be some possible closure about the controversial, “cut-to-black” ending to the series seventeen years ago.

“Trailblazers in Investigative Reporting” followed when father and son duo, John and Callahan Walsh, sat with chief research editor for Rolling Stone, Brenna Ehrlich, discussed their passion for crime-fighting and the revival of America’s Most Wanted and introducing it to a new generation of viewers. “It really has truly been an honor to be able to follow in my father’s footsteps—giant shoes to fill,” Callahan Walsh expressed. “But I watched my parents, both my mother and father, channel their emotions, their anger, over what happened to Adam, my brother who was kidnapped at six-years-old back in 1981. I watched them channel their emotions and anger over him to make sure Adam didn’t die in vain. If Adam’s song is to continue, then we must do the singing.”

There was some levity added to the event as the “Best Mashup—Politics, Humor, Pop Culture” panel took place, where radio host and personality Charlamagne tha God, Tony, Emmy and WGA Award-nominated writer and comedienne Amber Ruffin, The Daily Show correspondent Lewis Black, and award-winning comedian Alex Edelman talked about the state of comedy in a political space. With Variety’s TV critic Aramide Tinubu moderating the conversation, each panelist shared their views on how to be funny in such a tense social climate. “How do you satirize what’s already satiric,” Black asked the crowd. At the same time, Charlamagne suggested that “smart people make things way more complicated than they have to be” and that in terms of this year’s presidential election between former President Donald Trump and current Vice President Kamala Harris, the American people’s vote should be based on “the issues and not get caught up in the vibes.”

Nancy Grace was the subject of a revealing one-on-one fireside chat with Variety’s executive editor, Tatiana Seigel. The host of Crime Stories with Nancy Grace and founder and publisher of Crime Online chronicled her extensive history in true crime, a term that didn’t sit well with Grace. “I don’t see true crime as a genre,” Grace admitted before recounting a horrific event that placed her on her current path. “I became a crime victim a long, long time ago when my fiancé [Keith Griffin] was murdered shortly before our wedding. And I was studying to be a Shakespearian English professor,” she admitted. “It’s hard for me to describe what that was like. For crime victims, or for people in there fighting, [true crime] is not a genre. It’s real. These are real people that are going through real trauma.”

The “Documentary” panel followed, which featured filmmakers Rahman Ali Bugg (director, Exposing Parchman, Welcome to Rap City), Alex Stapleton (director, God Save Texas), Fisher Stevens (director, Beckham), Adam Bhala Lough (director, Telemarketers), and Lana Wilson (director, Look Into My Eyes). In discussing the motivations of a documentarian with moderator and Variety chief correspondent Daniel D’Addario, Ali Bugg said the medium is “personal work. I find it very hard to be objective once we find our meaning,” while Wilson added to that sentiment, saying, “You have to have this vision in your head you’re running toward that is rich enough to sustain you for two or three years. It can’t be simple.”

Lastly, before the Summit presented its Truth Seekers Award to E. Jean Carroll, the “True Crime Masters Tell All” panel took the stage. Filmmakers Muta’Ali Muhammad (MoviePass MovieCrash, Yusuf Hawkins: Storm Over Brooklyn), Christian Hansen (executive producer, American Conspiracy: The Octopus Murders), Amara Cofer (host and co-creator, Black Girl Gone), Brian Knappenberger (director, Trials of Gabriel Fernandez and Turning Point), Geeta Gandbhir (Born In Synanon, Emmy Award-winning Through Our Eyes: Apart), and Andrew Jarecki (executive producer/creator, The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst). In talking with Rolling Stone’s Culture Writer, CT Jones, the conversation delved into bringing their unique perspectives to their documentaries to life, with Jarecki poignantly stating that “Nobody wants to die without telling their story….Most of the time, they want to tell their story, and if you’re really going to listen, you’re going to give it the time that it requires, they feel very relieved.”

Those in attendance and those who witnessed the event digitally left the 2024 Truth Seekers Summit very relieved. As a resounding success, the Summit offered a platform for meaningful dialogue and an exchange of ideas among some of the most respected voices in the industry. In its fourth year, the Truth Seekers Summit presented by Paramount+ continued to serve as a reminder of the power of media to inform, inspire, and provoke change.