the kicker

Gupta Goes Blair Witch Project

April 29, 2009

My colleague Curtis sent me the link to this Sanjay Gupta CNN video from last night, noting its distinctly Blair Witch Project-like properties (Gupta creeping down the halls of a hospital in Mexico City filming himself, shaky, close-up, with a hand-held camera; his urgent, out-of-breath whispering; the sense that something sinister and mysterious may be near at hand).

Highlights include Gupta reporting that in Mexico City “the hospitals have been overwhelmed, not only by patients but also by press. But we were able to get in.” How? How did Gupta get past the armed, masked guards blocking the hospital’s entrance? “I told them I was a doctor and they let me in with a small camera.”







Liz Cox Barrett is a writer at CJR.