Zoom-in Online

Journalism, as we know it, is changing. With an influx of opinionated blogging and mindless infotainment, there is little room and little money for authentic journalism. New York Times reporter Nicholas Kristof is making a case for the way things used to be. The Pulitzer Prize winner brought the conflict in Darfur into the public consciousness and in 2007, trekked down to Congo to try and find a story that would do the same once again.

Following him was documentarian Eric Daniel Metzgar who was initially skeptical of the reporter’s desire to find the most desperate story around, but soon came around when he realized the purpose was to avoid the psychic numbing that results from overwhelming facts and figures about tragedy. Reporter, which debuted at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival, is simultaneously a meditation on the changing journalism atmosphere and the attempts to make international conflict relevant here in America. Zoom In Online's Jim Rohner spoke to Metzgar about these and other issues, including his experiences in the field and why the film almost never came to be.