On the evening of October 28, a documentary called In Pursuit: Lessons of American Leadership debuted in the United States on PBS and online. The film, according to the project's own Substack announcement, is built on weekly essays about Presidents and First Ladies, and weaves interviews with several In Pursuit authors together with archival material. The stated aim: explore what we can learn from the past to inform a more perfect union.
That sounds like a history film. It is worth reading as something else too — a case study in how a large, deliberately bipartisan coalition gets an idea in front of a mass audience. The culture around leadership is crowded with hot takes; this project went the other direction, toward patience, archives, and public television.
The film traces a line from the early republic, where George Washington's humility steadied a new nation facing an uncertain future, to the modern era, when Eleanor Roosevelt's advocacy for human rights helped transform the United States into a global power in the 20th century and beyond. For a business audience, the framing matters as much as the history. This is leadership told as behavior over time — not a quarter's results, but a career's.
Who is behind the pursuit, and why does the roster matter?
In Pursuit is described as a landmark initiative of More Perfect, a bipartisan alliance of 44 Presidential Centers, the National Archives Foundation, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Karsh Institute for Democracy at the University of Virginia, and more than 100 organizations. The timing is explicit: the coalition is working together to protect and renew democracy as the country marks the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence and beyond. Readers following this should also see The CEO pay ratio nobody reads says more than the salary everyone quotes.
That structure is the overlooked detail. A single production company making a documentary about presidents is a media event. Forty-four presidential centers plus a century-old learned society plus more than 100 organizations agreeing on a shared frame is an institutional strategy. The coalition gives the film two things money alone cannot buy: credibility across partisan lines, and a built-in distribution network of institutions with audiences of their own.
The on-screen roster reinforces the same bet. The film features In Pursuit contributors Lonnie Bunch, General Stanley McChrystal, Colleen Shogan, Ken Burns, Lindsay Chervinksy, John Bridgeland, Chief Justice John Roberts, Judy Woodruff, Anita McBride, Douglas Brinkley, Mark Updegrove, David Brooks, Sean Wilentz, and Sharon McMahon. That list runs from the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court to a historian who built her audience online — a deliberate spread across establishment and new media, left-leaning and right-leaning readerships alike.
Why PBS, and why free?
The film was produced by Retro Report for PBS, based on In Pursuit by More Perfect, with Bonnie Bertram directing, Kyra Darnton and Chris Buck executive producing, and Margaret Ebrahim serving as Executive in Charge for PBS. Funding came from the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations. It is now available on PBS.org, the PBS app, and PBS's YouTube channel.
That distribution choice is the quiet masterstroke. A subscription documentary reaches the people already inclined to watch. Free, ad-supported public television and YouTube reach everyone else — including the disengaged viewers a democracy project most wants. The coalition is not monetizing attention; it is maximizing reach, and the funder structure underwrites that choice. In an era when most media businesses chase narrower and narrower audiences, this is a bet on the opposite model: one film, everywhere, at no cost to the viewer.
There is a lesson here for anyone building an audience around an idea. In Pursuit started as essays, released weekly — a cadence that built a readership before the film ever existed. The documentary then converted that readership into a premiere, and the premiere into a permanent, freely available asset. Serial publishing first, flagship product second, open distribution third. It is a playbook any founder or media operator would recognize.
What can leaders actually take from it?
The two anchors the film chooses are telling. Washington's humility steadying an uncertain new nation, and Roosevelt's human-rights advocacy helping transform the country's global standing. Neither is a story of dominance. Both are stories of restraint, persistence, and long-horizon influence — the qualities that rarely trend but compound.
Readers interested in how leadership narratives get built and contested will find related coverage in our piece on women in leadership: boardroom progress and the pushback, and in our analysis of the CEO pay ratio nobody reads. The through-line is the same: which behaviors get rewarded, and who decides.
The honest caveat is that the evidence here comes from the project's own announcement. The film's reach, its audience response, and whether the coalition's framing lands with viewers who are not already engaged are all unknowns as of this writing. What is established is the structure: a bipartisan coalition, a free distribution strategy, and a premiere timed to a 250th anniversary. Whether that structure changes any minds is the question the next year will answer. The pursuit, in that sense, is just beginning.
