Director and producer Andrew Rossi explores the dark side of disinformation, or ‘fake news,’ in a new documentary executive produced by CNN’s Brian Stelter.
After Truth: Disinformation and the Cost of Fake News, an HBO Documentary Films presentation of an Abstract Production, will broadcast as a CNN Films Presents feature Saturday, August 29th at 10:00pm Eastern (7:00pm Pacific).
Through exclusive interviews with purveyors and victims of fake news, Rossi reveals the terrible human toll of false information, Russian troll farm-disseminated sentiment, and manipulated videos (so-called “deep fakes”), across partisan lines. Consumers have come to know many of these conspiracy theories by their shorthand labels, “QAnon,” “Pizzagate,” “birtherism,” “Wikileaks,” and more.
In August 2019, nearly a year prior to the 2020 national election, the FBI determined these fringe theories to pose such a threat to democracy, they are classified as potential forms of domestic terrorism.
Interviewed for After Truth are: James Alefantis, owner of Comet Ping Pong, the D.C pizza restaurant smeared by a near-deadly conspiracy theory fomented by political podcast and TV hosts; Keith Alexander, Pulitzer Prize-winning crime reporter for The Washington Post; Yochai Benkler, Harvard Law professor (co-author, Network Propaganda: Manipulation, Disinformation, and Radicalization in American Politics, 2018); Jack Burkman, self-professed propagator of “fake news”; Jerome Corsi, author and conspiracy theorist; Oliver Darcy, CNN senior media reporter; Adam Goldman, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter, The New York Times (co-author, Enemies Within: Inside the NYPD’s Secret Spying Unit and Bin Laden’s Final Plot Against America, 2013); Professor Kathleen Hall Jamieson, University of Pennsylvania (Cyberwar: How Russian Hackers and Trolls Helped Elect a President, 2018); disinformation expert, Molly McKew; Aaron Rich, brother of DNC staffer Seth Rich; Scott Shane, reporter for The New York Times (author, Objective Troy: A Terrorist, a President, and the Rise of the Drone, 2016); Will Sommer, tech reporter for The Daily Beast; Kara Swisher, technology business journalist, columnist, The New York Times; co-founder, Recode; Elizabeth Williamson, New York Times feature writer; and others.
After Truth: Disinformation and the Cost of Fake News is an Abstract Production documentary, co-produced by Adam McGill and edited by Cindy Lee. The music is by Ian Hultquist. For HBO: executive producers, Lisa Heller and Nancy Abraham; senior producer, Sara Rodriguez.
During the Aug 29 premiere on CNN, After Truth: Disinformation and the Cost of Fake News will stream live for subscribers via CNNgo (CNN.com/go and via CNNgo apps for Apple TV, Roku, Amazon Fire, Chromecast, Samsung Smart TV, and Android TV) and on the CNN mobile apps for iOS and Android. Following the linear basic cable premiere on CNN, the film will stream exclusively via HBO Max.