Last week Michael Jackson's guitarist discredited widely reported allegations about the star's behaviour on the road. So why is the media refusing to publish her comments? British writer Charles Thomson explores media bias against black music's biggest star.
Aging glam-rocker Gene Simmons made international headlines last month when he claimed to know that Michael Jackson had molested children. In an interview with Classic Rock, Simmons alleged that Jackson was on tape ordering alcohol for children and that during the star's 2005 trial a travel agent had testified to importing Brazilian boys for Jackson's amusement. He also claimed that a musician friend had quit a Jackson tour after seeing 'boys coming out of the hotel rooms.'
What followed was a classic example of copy and paste journalism. Within hours the story had been duplicated by hundreds of blogs, forums and news websites from Australia to India to the USA. None of them had fact-checked the story before they re-hosted it. Jackson was never on tape ordering alcohol for children. There was never any testimony during his trial about young Brazilian boys. Both of these claims were easily disproven by trial transcripts.
As a relative Jackson expert, I was also unaware of any musician ever leaving one of the singer's tours midway through. So when I sat down a fortnight ago for an interview with Jackson's long serving tour guitarist Jennifer Batten, I ran the story by her.
She told me that no musician had ever quit a Jackson tour. Two musicians had been fired but both were let go before the show hit the road, so they couldn't possibly have witnessed anything going on inside hotels.
When Sawf News published Batten's rebuttal I observed an all too familiar phenomenon. Although the story appeared on Google News and was picked up fairly swiftly by the Examiner, nobody else seemed willing to touch it. Whilst Simmons's speculative and ultimately baseless accusations had been reproduced the world over, Batten's expert rebuttal was being suppressed.
I soon began receiving emails from Jackson's fans telling me that they were sending the story to every celebrity news outlet they could think of, including several of those which published Simmons's initial allegations.
But more than 48 hours later, typing an exact quote from Simmons's rant into a search engine produced almost 350 webpages. The number of news outlets hosting Batten's rebuttal? Three.
This was not the first time I'd had a Jackson story suppressed. After Evan Chandler's suicide in November 2009 I was contacted by the Sun and asked to supply information about the 1993 allegations. I spent quite some time compiling my research, advising the newspaper of common myths and how to avoid them, being careful to source all of my facts from legal documents and audio/visual evidence.
When I read the finished article I was stunned to find that all of my information had been discarded and replaced with the very myths I had advised them to avoid. I alerted staff to the inaccuracies but my emails were not replied. The same inaccuracies appeared in every single article I read about the suicide.
The same bias manifested itself the following month when Jackson's FBI file was released. Across more than 300 pages of information there was not one piece of incriminating evidence -- but that's not the way the media told it.
A videotape seized at customs in West Palm Beach and analysed for child pornography was repeatedly referred to as belonging to Jackson. In actuality, files stated merely that the tape was 'connected' to Jackson and that connection appeared simply to be that somebody had written his name on the sticky label.
In another document the FBI logged a telephone call from a tipster claiming that the bureau had investigated Jackson during the 1980s for molesting two Mexican boys. The files made no other mention of the supposed investigation and the claim was ascribed no validity -- the call was merely noted. But the media persistently referred to the anonymous tipster's unsupported allegations as the FBI's own conclusions.
Jackson's FBI file overwhelmingly supported his innocence but its contents were routinely manipulated to give the opposite impression.
Many are quick to scoff when Jackson's fans speak of a media conspiracy to destroy the star's reputation and I used to scoff with them. As a member of the industry I prefer not to think of it as sinister and conspiratorial, but I find it increasingly difficult to explain away the bias with which Jackson is treated.
I wonder whether the problem is pride. When the 1993 allegations broke, the vast majority of information available was released, either officially or unofficially, by the prosecution. Jackson, meanwhile, remained characteristically silent.
Perhaps because the prosecution's version of events went almost completely unchallenged (although I imagine that drama and selling newspapers had something to do with it, too), the media primarily chose to portray Jackson as guilty.
But as the facts started to trickle out it became increasingly apparent that the case was full of holes. The allegations had been instigated not by the boy but by his father, who had demanded a scriptwriting deal from Jackson before he went to the police. He was on tape plotting to destroy Jackson's career and dismissing his son's wellbeing as 'irrelevant'. Then the boy told cops that Jackson was circumcised, but a police body search concluded that he was not.
Although Jackson's innocence looked increasingly likely, most news outlets had made their bed and to this day they seem unwilling to do anything but lie in it.
Whatever the motivation, be it pride, profit or plain old racism, the bias against Jackson is undeniable. The suppression of Batten's comments proves once more than when it comes to Jackson the media is interested not in fact or reason but negativity and sensationalism. Batten accompanied Jackson on all three of his world tours and was known for a decade as his 'right hand woman'. But Simmons -- who self-confessedly did not know Jackson -- has been given over 100 times more media coverage for his inaccurate ranting than Batten has for her firsthand experience.
It is time for outlets to assume responsibility for their own content. Websites should not re-host other publishers' stories unless they can be completely certain that the content is factual. Even if the media refuses to print the truth about Jackson, they should compromise by not printing the lies either. At least that way he can rest in peace.
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Did Sneddon, Dimond, Grace and the rest of the lynch mob know what they were doing?
You betcha.
So will we.
Did Sneddon, Dimond, Grace and the rest of the lycnh-mob know what they were doing?
You betcha.
So will we.
And Sneddon, Dimond, Orth and Grace shouted the roof off.
For years.
An ability to manipulate the media for one's own agenda has been a sure-fire route to external power for a long time. And America, a country that sells illusion - and eats it, better than anyone else is teeming with Masters of this Dark Art.
When, I wonder, will their actions catch up with them?
For the record Mr Simmons, Jordan Chandler hasn't been a child for a very long time now. Jordan was invited to testify at the trial and he declined. If he had testified, it would have been a perfect opportunit
But Jordan, strangely, decided not to testify. Jordan's testimony would have in no way threatened the settlement he received as that was a civil payment. So why didn't he use what would surely have been a golden opportunit
Could it have been because Thomas Mesereau had publicly told an audience at Harvard University that he had witnesses willing to swear on the stand that Jordan Chandler had told them Michael Jackson had never molested him?
As for Gavin Arviso, a conservati
No, Mr Simmons, it is you we would like to hear from.
We would like an apology made to Michael's family and to his children, who after suffering the loss of their father, now have to cope with the lies and attacks on their father from people who should know better.
The world as we knew it degenerate
It was a grand hoax. And we all fell for it. It seems we like falling for it, we do it time and time again.
We believe our own hysteria and then say never again, until the next time.
There was no case for Michael Jackson to answer in 1993 or in 2005. An in-depth look at the circumstan
Janet Arviso and her brood of trained liars watched their constructe
And, suprise, we followed suit. Well if the media doesn't believe the verdict, there must be something wrong with it right?
Wrong. The media was just disappoint
The media's bottom line was money.
But she was right. Michael Jackson was abandoned. We let animals like Dimond, Orth, Grace and Sneddon tear Michael Jackson limb from limb, and no-one but those people who turned up at the court everyday, did a thing about it.
I, also, do nothing.
And that is my shame.
America lost its moral compass a long time ago. Unfortunat
Land of the brave?
Try depraved.
Not from where I'm sitting it's not. There are countless stories in the press as recently as today about how Michael allegedly carried out voodoo rituals, how he demanded drugs on tap, and how he was an out of control diva - and worse.
And in the UK, a comment chaser i.e journalist called Tanya Gold, spewed absolute lies about Michael in print and managed to get it published by a non-tabloi
Anyone who's been paying attention, knows Michael Jackson was slowly murdered over a period of 16 years by the deliberate and wholly biased attack that came from the pens of Diane Dimond, Maureen Orth, and the thousands of stories this shameful profession force-fed America and Britain with - before the rest of world's media followed suit.
It will be a cold day in Hell before the media looks in the mirror.
They already know what they'd see.
MJ fans get a bad rap from the media, but since I wouldn't trust any of those hacks as far as I could throw them, I'll make up my own mind.
You want to know how to ensure Jackson's place in history or how to effect justice against those who set about decimating his name and reputation
Become part of the system that's how. Be an effective fifth column from within. Protesting from the outside with homemade placards will only get you so far.
Enter the beast. Enter the media.
Become the journalist
Change the system from the INSIDE.
That's true revolution
Visit http://www
If not for the pain created by people like Evan Chandler and the biased reporting of mainstream media, Michael Jackson wouldn't have depended on anaestheti
Mr. Simmon's envies Mr. Jackson's unparallel
The irony is that the reporters especially people who never even met Michael use all negative words to describe him which is completely opposite to what he is-a very loving, caring, compassion
i have learned if i pen more than a line or 2 in support of Michael Jackson, it's deleted..
somehow, posts that contain scurilous accusation
seems THIS publicatio
In 2005, and since, when reading the trial transcript
Fast-forwa
Nothing has changed, as they say it's the same story - only the names are different.
Michael Jackson was subjected to an absurd trial that cost the American taxpayer millions of dollars, because Tom Sneddon and the majority of the media wanted us to believe Michael Jackson was a deviant harmer of children.
Why? Why not?
Garbage sells.
Gene Simmons found a ready market for his slander for the same reasons. People get their kicks, kicking others down.
It's vicarious brutality, and it's getting worse..
my post was deleted...
BOTH families and ACCUSERS were all motivated by money
all i can say to them is this,
TIME WOUNDS ALL HEELS....
I guess we'll be waiting a long time then.
Last time I checked Simmons still thinks the world is interested in watching him seduce young jail-bait on film?
And they call Michael Jackson the pervert?