Leaving Neverland — Is it true? Trustworthiness is all about Brand these days
Two keys thoughts struck me as I watched “Leaving Neverland” on HBO. One was that the claims against Michael Jackson were so heinous, it was hard to fathom. You couldn’t have written a better movie script about a fictional character. As I watched it, the facts got crazier and crazier and harder to believe, except this was all real. Or was it? Secondly, I thought well, it’s HBO, so it must be pretty accurate. Right? I mean I had watched “Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief” and I believed that.
I believe in the HBO brand regarding documentaries. Should I? In a world of fake news, we have to trust some brands when it comes to news and documentaries. We each can’t check all the facts, especially on topics that are not central to our lives. We each can debate for weeks and months regarding the accuracy of Leaving Neverland, but nobody other than a few people really know so what’s the point in debating if it’s true, let’s go right to how we feel about what he did. Right?
HBO obviously made a pretty bold move here, as it is a clear test to the credibility of their brand when it comes to documentaries. We should be impressed?
Fake news is the single biggest existential threat to our society. Even Cybersecurity experts agree that it’s a social problem that can’t be easily fixed by all our fancy technology. If the vast majority of people trust brands that are untrustworthy what can be done about it? Sure you can use technology to ensure that a news clip actually comes from the New York Times or the Economist by going directly to their site, but you can’t force people to choose certain brands, and then ensure they don’t use social networking to get stories from trusted brands, because then you would have to trust Facebook. Entertainment will win over the masses every time — as well as the various nefarious forces behind it.
I will generally not pay attention to any item of news that doesn’t come from a trusted brand and will generally not click on a news item that is listed as “sponsored”. Generally…..In a moment of weakness and boredom I do sometimes, I’m not perfect. Sometimes I’m feeling down and just can’t help it, I want to be entertained, or I want to feel like somebody’s life is worse than my current situation, or maybe just maybe there is a hint of truth in there such as in “Rathergate”. It was blogs that acted as the watch dog to Dan Rather’s erroneous claims against George W Bush’s military record, and this resulted in Dan Rather’s exit from CBS after a long illustrious career. So the “Untrustworthy” sources made the “Trustworthy” sources more trustworthy by permanently putting the fear of a watchdog in them. I think that’s evolution of the “Trustworthy” sources.
Is HBO a trustworthy source for documentaries? They are an entertainment brand, and not a news brand, but then again, all news is entertainment, it’s just a matter of degree. We probably shouldn’t expect a video to have the same level of balance as a written piece, but they wouldn’t lie or mislead, or not check the facts? I think they are trustworthy, they’re a big company who needs to protect their brand. Or are they? What source will tell me that?
