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Most generally believe that Citizenfour is a journalistically sound film. Laura Poitras is a cinema verite filmmaker, and though cinema verite is often cited for the handheld camera work commonly associated with it (a common technical necessity, but not an aesthetic requirement), a better definition of cinema verite focuses on the filmmaker’s relation with its subject.

Citizenfour overtly deals with the classic cinema verite challenge of creating a minimally subjective picture when the filmmaker was clearly asked by the subject to create the film for a specific purpose. Although Snowden’s information leak was arguably done for the greater public good, he did have personal reasons for asking Poitras to film him, and there were clearly reasons why she was approached over any other filmmaker, all of which stem from her own political activities and beliefs. This alone has placed the film under greater scrutiny even though the film is continuously upfront about these issues.

While social documentaries have typically aspired for the attention afforded to serious journalism, they’ve rarely been held to the same accountability as a reporters would be in the newsroom - what would be career-ending errors and ethical lapses at a newspaper could be forgivable, even ignored, in a documentary film. However, due to Greenwald’s involvement, Poitras was especially mindful about how she was making this film as it would have been far more damning for Citizenfour to drift away from objectivity as Greenwald himself would be on the line, if not Poitras.