You know your second paragraph where you say that you had always assumed he was guilty because he looked like a weirdo got me thinking. I and basically everybody else I knew thought along these same lines, he looks like a weirdo it must be true he does bad things. So what if the entire intention behind labeling him a pedophile was to create a sort of narrative that this is what a rich a pedophile looks like: some wack job weirdo that went from black to white skin, has a weird nose, and also has a literal theme park at their house. Well of course now we know that the real rich pedophile looks much more like a clean cut slick talking politician than somebody most considered a bit nutty to begin with. Who knows but if it is true that he wasn't actually a bad guy, then clearly there must be another reason.

I think the reason for the sudden pushback to say he's guilty is that the media desperately is trying to keep their ability to control the narrative. To do that they need to retain their credibility (no matter how weak we might see their credibility, it is simply a fact that your average normie doesnt question it), and if Michael Jackson not being a pedophile starts to gain traction and people begin to accept it as true it completely undermines the media's credibility because they were so blatantly 100% in on him being a bad guy. I think that's why you see them stupidly double down like this, they have lied so much and for so long they have no other choice: do nothing and hope nothing comes from it, admit to the lies, or lie some more and hope nobody notices. Obviously they always choose lie some more.