“What happened changed the way documentaries and news were done,” said Richard Falco, an award-winning journalist, documentary filmmaker and professor at Sacred Heart University.
| AP News, Jae C Hong |
In 1992, producers at ABC News received tips about unsanitary food-handling practices at Food Lion, a regional supermarket chain. Two undercover reporters, employed using false résumés and work histories, found workers were grossly mishandling food and serving expired meat.
Food Lion was ultimately held accountable, but they also sued ABC.
“The company sued them,” said Falco. “Not that they didn’t tell the truth, but that they deceived the company in telling them they were meat workers. And the company won the case.”
Falco and other journalists assert that this set a precedent for news reporting.
“I can’t tell you how many of my stories [media outlets] just cut because they didn’t want to have to defend themselves,” he said. “They’d rather just not do the story.”
The internet has only further warped how we consume information.
“Journalism has been vilified for the last twenty years,” said Falco. “And using media the way it can be used now, it’s like whoever shouts the loudest gets heard.”
Elon Musk is the world’s first trillionaire and focus of director Alex Gibney’s new documentary “Musk,” an outspoken figure in the media.
“I started out doing the film because it was about 21st century power,” said Gibney to AP News. “I didn’t have a sense at that time that he was literally going to accrete the power of a kind of shadow president. But that’s what he did, so we had to follow that story where it went.”
Musk led President Trump’s short-lived DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) in 2024 and spent a record $445 million on the 2026 United States midterm elections.
In response to the documentary, Musk erupted into a series of verbal attacks against Gibney on X, the social media site Musk bought in 2022.
“Gibney has zero integrity,” said Musk. “He’s a bitter old man.”
Musk’s lawyer already threatened Gibney with a defamation suit, according to NPR.
Additionally, the film’s distributor, Bleecker Street, has been unable to run paid advertisements on several major social media platforms including X, YouTube, TikTok and Meta.
Falco is concerned about the distribution of documentaries in particular despite still enjoying them.
“Whatever that streaming service is will determine who will even have access to it,” said Falco. “But most people aren’t interested in watching them. They want to be entertained. They don’t want to be informed.”
Despite this, documentaries like “Musk” and the new “You Can See Everything” film on Elizabeth Holmes’ company, Theranos, while uncommon, have premiered in theaters. Over the span of three weekends, “You Can See Everything” grossed over $64 million at the box office.
Owen Telesmanick, sophomore and president of the Short Filmmaker’s Club, believes conventional news media struggles to hold audiences’ attention.
“You have to keep people engaged,” said Telesmanick.
“Documentaries are like creative nonfiction,” said junior Elizabeth Teixeira, vice-president of the Short Filmmaker’s Club. “But you definitely have to be careful with that line between entertainment and changing a truth.”
Telesmanick mentioned Netflix’s “Untold” and ESPN’s “30 for 30” series as great examples of current documentaries.
“Whenever these documentaries come out, it gets people thinking again and they’re like, oh, well maybe I’m on this side now,” said Telesmanick. “But usually [your reaction] is purely based on what you want to hear.”
Falco sees this ability to discern truths from fabricated lies as essential.
“This is where media literacy is more important now than ever before,” said Falco. “Never before has documentary work been more important.”
The Associated Press Contributed to this Article
