Pocket Docs was born from a concern: artificial intelligence is increasingly used to fabricate content passed off as truth.

The word “documentary” is also too often misused or misunderstood. A documentary explores reality in order to convey it to others. By that definition, documentaries are observational, not generative. A simple test: would this have happened without the camera present? A documentary does not advocate. Its job is not to promote or celebrate an idea, a product, or a place. If it promotes anything, it should be thoughtful discussion. Leave the rest to infomercials.

But the average person can no longer distinguish between authentic content and advocacy dressed as truth — and soon, even experts may struggle. How can we assure people that what they see on a screen really happened? We can’t. Seeing is no longer believing.

Citizens need to observe and confirm for themselves. But proof must be visible.

One clue is the camera.

Unlike a trail camera or a surveillance camera that passively records, the documentary camera gazes. It probes. It explores. And in doing so, it leaves footprints. It wobbles. It shakes. Sometimes it needs to refocus. It is not perfect — and that imperfection is the point. Those wobbles and hesitations are the loops, whorls, and arches of authenticity’s fingerprint.

I grow suspicious when things look a little too slick. There’s a saying: “Perfect is the enemy of good.” It can also be the enemy of truth.

I come to this as a skeptic with reason to be one. I’ve had a deliberately varied career: professional theatre, broadcast television, documentary filmmaking, organizational consulting, academia, and group relations psychology. As different as these fields appear, they share a common purpose — exploring experience and communicating it to others. The documentary filmmaker explores reality and conveys it outward. The psychoanalyst strives to make the unconscious conscious. Different lenses, same impulse.

Pocket Docs are short films — many shot on a camera that fits in my pocket. Often a single, continuous take. Straight from reality. No corrections. No algorithms.

I sometimes call them seens from everyday life: small bridges that make the unfamiliar experience of others feel familiar. I use the camera to ask, “What’s it like to…?”