This film looks to shed light on the rigor behind journalism and why it's all worth it. It’s a piece of work about pursuing the truth wherever it may lead and bringing that truth back in word form for the world to read. The film delves into the courage of Azam Ahmed, Bureau Chief for Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean, as he untangles the web of leads and sources behind the Mexican government’s surveillance of journalists—ultimately finding himself at the center of his own story and the target of the Mexican government’s tactics. The spot was released at a time of intense discussions about the safety of journalists and the conduct of the Mexican government, making it even more critical to reiterate the importance of the truth and the value of NYT journalism.

The film launched at a time when the issue of espionage and our relationship with Mexico were being hotly debated. The script had to deliver the scale of this important story while balancing the journalistic integrity of The New York Times. The script puts us in the reporter's stream of consciousness, adopting his tone of voice while also maintaining The Times’s inimitable house style. The script, a connected thread of words that appear on screen creating the effect of a continuously rewritten headline, was central to putting to putting the viewer in the psyche of the journalist as he unpicked a story of government surveillance in Mexico.

The film’s art direction is centered around a unique typographic treatment of continuously rewriting headlines paired with emotive mixed media and found footage. By using this headline construct and supporting it with this real footage from the reporting, we were able to put viewers in the shoes of the journalist as she worked, making them experience all the fears, doubts and triumphs that go into reporting a Times story. In this way, the art direction brought to life the all-too-real threats journalists endure in the the murky world of government surveillance.