A timely look into how the rich can manipulate opinion and information

Brian Knappenberger's latest film, Nobody Speak: Trials of the Free Press, reminds us all of the high price of free speech.

Hulk Hogan walks out of the courthouse after he was awarded $115 million in damages in his lawsuit against Gawker. Newscom

Any democratic society exists on a slippery slope, never more than a shove or a stumble away from plunging onto the rocks – and all it takes to throw the system off balance is a billionaire eager to manipulate the media and a salacious trial.

Sometimes it takes someone, such as American documentarian Brian Knappenberger, who is prepared to immerse themselves in murky, unsavoury waters to restore a semblance of equilibrium with a dose of harsh unvarnished truth.

His latest film Nobody Speak: Trials of the Free Press – which debuts on Friday on Netflix – reminds us all of the high price of free speech with a timely and cautionary tale about the dangers of the super rich using their money and influence to control the message and the media.

The documentary, which had its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival this year – and has a 100 per cent approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes – opens with a look at a courtroom circus over privacy rights. It chronicles the epic court battle last year between wrestling legend Hulk Hogan and online gossip site Gawker over its decision to publish an intimate video of him.

It resulted in an unprecedented US$140 million (Dh514m) damages verdict that plunged Gawker Media into bankruptcy.

There is really no one to cheer for in this case. In one corner sits Nick Denton, the obnoxious Gawker publisher who built an empire through insults and invasions of privacy.

In the other sits Hogan (real name Terrence Gene Bollea), an egomaniac and reality-TV star who bragged about his love life.

But Nobody Speak really gets interesting when it takes a darker turn to address the risks of speaking truth to power – and reveals that a mysterious billionaire, Peter Thiel, bankrolled Hogan's legal case.

"It started as a privacy-versus- first amendment story that was by itself really interesting and relevant," says Knappenberger, whose previous films include The Internet's Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz and We Are Legion: The Story of the Hacktivists.

“But it ended up becoming something very different, a stark example of big money controlling public opinion and information. When that happened, I knew I had to dig deeper and hang on for the ride.”

With the era of “fake news” and destabilising presidential tweets as a backdrop, the film broadens its scope to consider First Amendment rights, America’s constitutional guarantee of free speech and a free press.

This becomes disquieting examination of the wealthy’s ability to silence news organisations and journalists.

“I learnt still photography at an early age and have always been interested in visual storytelling,” says Knappenberger, who grew up in Broomfield, Colorado, a farm-ringed suburb next to what was then the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons facility.

“Growing up, we had a vague sense of what was happening at Rocky Flats – there were protests, our next-door neighbour worked there, we had a general sense that certain areas around us might be contaminated.

“But what emerged in me was a deep mistrust of power, a suspicion of war and its awful tools, and that maybe filmmaking could shed some light on what was previously dark.”

Knappenberger hopes viewers of his film will better appreciate that “the First Amendment and a free press are vital to a democracy.

He adds: “The press isn’t the enemy of the people; the press is the people.... “We should all support good investigative journalism financially but that’s not enough. In a chaotic-information world, we need stand up for the concept itself, to keep it alive. A strong, independent press is far more important ... than any politician, public figure, business executive or even – maybe especially – the president.”

Making Nobody Speak was far from easy, with continuing legal threats. Getting people to talk on camera was difficult.

“My subjects emerged themselves from the information wars,” says Knappenberger. “ They climbed out of the muck, and I just chased them down.”

• Nobody Speak: Trials of the Free Press will be available on Netflix from Friday