--- title: CNN Nixes Hillary Clinton Documentary description: CNN has scrapped much-criticized plans to make a documentary about Hillary Clinton, after the director quit the project citing a lack of people willing to... canonical: https://time.com/archive/7181030/cnn-nixes-hillary-clinton-documentary/ author: TIME Staff article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2013-09-30T14:31:40.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-03-18T06:37:27.081Z article:section: Politics og:title: CNN Nixes Hillary Clinton Documentary og:description: CNN has scrapped much-criticized plans to make a documentary about Hillary Clinton, after the director quit the project citing a lack of people willing to... og:url: https://time.com/archive/7181030/cnn-nixes-hillary-clinton-documentary/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6d78dd339d80dbcc/698a9d1d16d8845b5cc45d0f/600_hillaryclinton_0925.jpg?branch=production&width=600&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 600 og:image:height: 338 og:image:alt: Hillary Clinton og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: CNN Nixes Hillary Clinton Documentary twitter:description: CNN has scrapped much-criticized plans to make a documentary about Hillary Clinton, after the director quit the project citing a lack of people willing to... twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6d78dd339d80dbcc/698a9d1d16d8845b5cc45d0f/600_hillaryclinton_0925.jpg?branch=production&width=600&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [Politics](/section/politics/) # CNN Nixes Hillary Clinton Documentary > Sponsored content. 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It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, twice a week. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3/newsletters?i=10b9018f-7cda-4bb3-9d94-14730464e3b8&cr=time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3-v1) by [TIME Staff](https://time.com/author/time-staff/) Sep 30, 2013 2:31 PM UTC  U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton waves as she arrives at the 67th the United Nations General Assembly, at U.N. headquarters, Tuesday, Sept. 25, 2012\. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle) U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton waves as she arrives at the 67th the United Nations General Assembly, at U.N. headquarters, Tuesday, Sept. 25, 2012\. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle) AP by [TIME Staff](https://time.com/author/time-staff/) Sep 30, 2013 2:31 PM UTC CNN has scrapped much-criticized plans to make a documentary about Hillary Clinton, after the director quit the project citing a lack of people willing to be interviewed for the film. The director, Charles H. Ferguson, blamed pressure from Clinton aides and from the Republican National Committee. The project had been fiercely criticized by Republicans who saw the very fact that CNN would air a documentary on a 2016 Democratic presidential hopeful as evidence of media bias, and threatened to boycott the network when it came time to pick stations to air presidential debates. “After approaching well over a hundred people, only two persons who had ever dealt with Mrs. Clinton would agree to an on-camera interview, and I suspected that even they would back out,” he wrote in [The Huffington Post](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/charles-ferguson/hillary-clinton-documentary%5Fb%5F4014792.html?utm%5Fhp%5Fref=media). ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/archive/7181030/cnn-nixes-hillary-clinton-documentary/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/archive/7181030/cnn-nixes-hillary-clinton-documentary/"},"headline":"CNN Nixes Hillary Clinton Documentary","datePublished":"2013-09-30T14:31:40.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-18T06:37:27.081Z","description":"CNN has scrapped much-criticized plans to make a documentary about Hillary Clinton, after the director quit the project citing a lack of people willing to...","url":"https://time.com/archive/7181030/cnn-nixes-hillary-clinton-documentary/","keywords":["CNN"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6d78dd339d80dbcc/698a9d1d16d8845b5cc45d0f/600_hillaryclinton_0925.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"TIME Staff","url":"https://time.com/author/time-staff/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6d78dd339d80dbcc/698a9d1d16d8845b5cc45d0f/600_hillaryclinton_0925.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Hillary Clinton","caption":"Hillary Clinton","creditText":"AP","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/archive/7181030/cnn-nixes-hillary-clinton-documentary/","name":"CNN Nixes Hillary Clinton Documentary"}}]}] ```