Coyote Blog

Last weekend I watched both the Leaving Neverland documentary about Michael Jackson and the Out for Blood documentary on Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos.

The Theranos documentary was fine -- Theranos is an amazing story and any documentary on it is naturally going to be engaging.  My only issue with it was that it was very spare compared to the depth of the Bad Blood book.  The documentary worked a bit too hard trying to be too stylized.  I would have rather a faster-paced, harder hitting approach.  But if you have not read the book, it is definitely worth your time.

On the other hand, the Michael Jackson documentary was simply riveting.  I really had zero desire to sit and watch 4 hours on child molesting, but I was totally engrossed.  The individuals telling the story were so articulate and honest that I just got sucked in to the story.  The whole thing was simply devastating.  And as an aside, the B-reel footage used in cut scenes and such was simply beautiful.

It is amazing that a scandal that has appeared on something like 14 million web pages (per Google, though ymmv as I see people getting all kinds of numbers) in a matter of just 2 weeks has yet to appear on the US mainstream network news.  I mean, these were the guys who spent breathless hours of live coverage reporting every breaking rumor about changes to Michael Jackson's coffin.

No real point.  Not calling for government intervention, obviously.  Just amazing how irrelevant the networks have become.  If it weren't for Time and Newsweek, and I would say they were the least relevant major news outlets in the country.

Some major, must-report outcome is going to come out of this Internet hype, and at that point the networks will find themselves in a position they have already been in several times this year -- trying to explain significant actions resulting from a long-standing scandal or controversy they never reported.