Caty Borum heads the Center for Media and Social Impact at the American University School of Communication, and she's the author of Story Movements: How Documentaries Empower People and Inspire Social Change. She studies “creative, independent investigative documentary,” her term for docs that are as thoroughly artistic as they are journalistic. We chat about the techniques and challenges that make these stories and their storytellers unique. More about Caty here.

Films mentioned in this episode:
Newtown (2016), Dir. Kim Snyder
An Insignificant Man (2016), Dir. Khushboo Ranka and Vinay Shukla
Citizenfour (2014), Dir. Laura Poitras
The Feeling Of Being Watched (2018), Dir. Assia Boundaoui
The Murder of Emmett Till (2003), Dir. Stanley Nelson
Attica (2021), Dir. Stanley Nelson

Other mentions:
Tabitha Jackson
Errol Morris
Doc Society
International Documentary Association
World Press Freedom Index
Exposé: America’s Investigative Reports
Peter Nicks
Jon Shenk
Tom Jennings

Follow us on Instagram! @ThousandRoadsPod

Special thanks for helping make this series happen: Sara Archambault, Florence Barrau-Adams, Jon Berman, Ben Cuomo (music), Jax Deluca, Pallavi Deshpande, Nancy Gibbs, Kathleen Hughes, Caroline Kracunas, Laura Manley, Alexis Pancrazi, Liz Schwartz, Jeff Seelbach, Lindsay Underwood (logo/graphics)

This episode was supported by a fellowship at the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School.