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Media ignore the truth about Michael Jackson for the sake of money
by Yvonne Verhagen LegendaryMJ
When reporting about Michael Jackson, for the sake of money, the tabloid press deliberately ignores its ethical responsibilities, most of all the truth is ignored
"I always say to my fans, “Let’s have a tabloid burning. Let’s make a big mountain out of tabloids and just burn them.” ~Michael Jackson
The above words were often mentioned by Michael when talking about his frustration regarding the way he was portrayed by the tabloid press. Still today, they tend to focus on the publishing of negative and sensationalized, often even completely made-up stories about him. When asked about it, they will claim that they provide the public with what it loves to read. What they prefer to ignore, though, is the fact that, first of all, they do have certain ethical responsibilities themselves, both towards the person they’re reporting about and towards the public they serve. For example, they are supposed to report the truth and to treat people and subjects respectfully.
Although Michael claimed to have rhinoceros skin, he must have suffered tremendously from the total lack of integrity that was shown in the stories reported about him by the tabloid press throughout the years. The tabloid press includes the paparazzi that followed Michael literally everywhere he went, and never granted him the privacy he was so badly longing for.
Paparazzi have existed ever since people started to realize that they could make enormous amounts of money by taking candid photographs of celebrities and sell them to tabloid media. They prefer to be called, “celebrity photographers”, and to be defined as “freelance photographers who pursue unique candid photographs of celebrities”. The actual term ‘paparazzi’, though, was derived from the name of a character in the film, La Dolce Vita (1960). In this film, Signor Paparazzo was a photographer who was constantly making efforts to shoot the next big picture, at one point relentlessly photographing a woman who was devastated by personal tragedy. The tactics he used were most similar to the ones used by most freelance celebrity photographers we know in real life, and so, from that time, the latter started to be known as ‘paparazzi’. If talking about only one of them, we call him a paparazzo. Yet, you will hardly see a paparazzo all alone, since they tend to stalk not only celebrities, but also each other. They follow each other into places, hoping to end up in the opportunity of making a ‘much promising’ photograph.
Tabloid publishers are willing to pay a high price for a unique photo of a celebrity, especially if that photo provides ‘truth’ to the information they have of that celebrity. Unfortunately, the tabloid media and the paparazzi have turned out to be not very interested in reporting the truth. Celebrities, in general, have to deal with false rumors, often even completely made-up stories that are spread about them and that will distort their image. Often, they are treated far from respectful. Overall, the behavior of the tabloid media and paparazzi lacks integrity. The main reason for their totally unacceptable, completely unethical behavior is their boundless desire to earn big money. To use Michael’s words;
"The love of money is the root of all evil."
Michael Jackson
Michael, being the most well-known entertainer in the world, has, as we all know, proven to be the tabloids’ and paparazzi’s greatest target, their biggest victim. The number of rumors and lies circulating about him has always been numerous. Even today, with Michael not even able to defend himself anymore, the tabloids still manage to fabricate false stories about him, and if they can’t find something about him that will help them to make money, then they will even remorselessly use his children as their next target.
This was recently exhibited by the Daily Star when they created the rumor of Blanket’s cartoon series “Kill Them All”, which, as it turned out very soon after only little necessary research performed by Ivy from MJJ Community, proved to be one big lie!
Unfortunately, without any research of their own being conducted, the completely made-up story had immediately been copied and pasted (plagiarized!) by numerous tabloid media, such as Daily Mirror, Radar Online, YahooUK, amongst others. After the truth had come out Daily Star removed the offending story but didn’t take responsibility for their totally unacceptable and completely unethical behavior. Other tabloids have done very little to absolutely nothing to correct their shameless acts.
The ethical responsibilities that journalists are supposed to take into account stem from so-called ‘Codes of Ethics’. Many countries have these codes of ethics for journalists, showing a lot of similarities between them. The codes are set up basically for journalists from all media and specialties, including tabloid journalists and paparazzi! Meant to provide a guide for ethical behavior, they are voluntarily embraced by thousands of benevolent journalists. Because they are not legally enforceable, though, it is the responsibility of each individual tabloid journalist and paparazzo how he or she prefers to behave when it comes to showing ethical behavior or integrity!
Unfortunately, throughout almost his entire career, Michael has been the victim of disgusting and unethical behavior of the tabloid media and the paparazzi, who just loved to embarrass him, to tear him apart. From the very first moment he started breaking records, the tabloids started to slander Michael’s name and to distort his image. Nothing was off limits, they were willing to write anything just to attain the highest ratings and, most importantly, to earn big money. They started creating rumors and stories that were often completely made-up. Especially, as Michael was most aware, they would ignore important facts to create their sensational stories. In his 1988 book ‘Moonwalk’ he already wrote;
The part that doesn’t get printed is often the part that would make the printed part less sensational by shedding light on the facts."
Perhaps the most important rule mentioned in codes of ethics is that a journalist should report the truth. He or she is supposed to present all sides of a covered story, based on properly performed research. Also, the journalist is supposed to make sure that headline, news releases and materials, such as photos, videos, and quotations do not misrepresent. Interesting, as well, are the rules to never plagiarize and to always be objective.
Probably, all of us will agree that there is nothing unreasonable or weird in the ethical rules just mentioned. With every sincere thinking and behaving person understanding them, they should not really be difficult to take into account for a journalist conscious of his responsibility and willing to treat people he is reporting about with respect and integrity. However, as history has shown and as is still shown today, when reporting about Michael Jackson, all these rules easily seem to fade away. It has turned out that the tabloid press is willing to stoop very low to get their truth-ignoring, their unethically obtained stories, their complete garbage, sold.
The absurd made up story about Michael sleeping in a hyperbaric chamber is a very well-known one. Allegedly, he thought it would help him to keep feeling and looking young. As Michael explained, the truth was that after he had been burned very badly during the filming of the Pepsi commercial, with the money he and Pepsi had settled for, the Michael Jackson Burn Centre was built and the hyperbaric chamber was a piece of technology used for burn victims. While Michael was looking at that piece of technology, touching it and deciding to go inside, somebody took a picture of him. Later, when the picture was being processed, someone recognized him and made a copy of the picture that was soon spread by tabloid media all over the world, with the lie attached to it. Needless to say, the plagiarized story completely lacked research and truth!
Another, not so well known example of a story being made-up about Michael, lacking of research and truth, and illustrating how desperately the tabloid press was willing to publish just anything about him for the sake of money, can be found in William Van Valin’s book, ‘Private Conversations in Neverland with Michael Jackson’. Van Valin writes about how Michael one day shared with him what had happened after he once went to a drug store, where he bought toothpaste, a toothbrush, shampoo, some razors, and deodorant. It turned out that someone had made a list of the things he had bought and had some psychiatrist draw ridiculous conclusions about Michael’s state of mental health. Just a few days later, a tabloid magazine had used them to evaluate his personality!
Throughout the years the lies and rumors, the made-up stories, most importantly the ignoring of important facts about Michael and his life, became more serious and more damaging. Of course, everyone knows the horrible lies about him being accused of bleaching his skin, because he didn’t want to be black, where in reality, Michael was suffering from the skin disorder, Vitiligo. Still, by January 2009, a British satirical publication, The Daily Squib, was attempting to be funny by publishing the ‘joke’ that Michael was said to be seeking to regain his blackness because of the popularity of black celebrities such as: actors (Will Smith), politicians (President Barack Obama), and sportsmen (Grand Prix winner, Lewis Hamilton). Michael allegedly couldn’t help feeling like he made the wrong decision by undergoing the intensive whitening treatment all those years ago. He was said to be fearful of being left behind now. Also, it was stated that Michael, because of being bankrupt, may now have to remain ‘white’ because he had run out of cash to reverse the de-colorization process he underwent through in the 80s. The truth of Michael’s Vitiligo was relentlessly ignored, the ’joke’ was based on a cruel and unacceptable lie, that totally lacked ethical responsibility and that never should have been spread in the first place! Rather than funny or satiric, I tend to call this a painful example of disgusting and totally misplaced humor.
The bashing of Michael by the tabloid press went so far as to call him a freak, a homosexual, even a child molester! Back in 1993, in their love for money, the tabloids, of course, competed to publish the first article about the Jordy Chandler scandal. Tabloids ruthlessly suggested that Michael’s career was over. It was one of the most misleading, shameful, and unethical attempts to earn money by ruining Michael’s reputation, while at the same time jumping on the bandwagon of negativity that the whole affair created. As usual, plagiarized reports lacked proper research and truth.
In their sensational stories about the Chandler scandal, the tabloid media were deliberately not paying attention to the most striking fact that Evan Chandler, the father of the alleged victim, instead of reporting the alleged molestation, by Michael of his son, to the police first of all (which every healthy- thinking and his child-loving parent would have done!), he went to see a lawyer and concocted a huge money claim! Reporting this would have exonerated Michael in the public’s eye, but that was simply not in the media’s interest, since reporting dirt about him made their story much more interesting, and led them to earn the big money they were aiming for. They deliberately chose to ignore this important fact!
In the aftermath of these ridiculous and false accusations of child molestation Michael, more than ever before, became subject to the paparazzi and tabloid media wanting to tear him apart. Numerous, unethical journalists have fervently been trying to drag Michael down. It became a true media machine that made millions of dollars by perpetuating the notion that he was a freak. They were constantly tripping on him and dehumanizing him. Diane Dimond even built her career upon tearing Michael apart and is still relentlessly continuing to do so today!
In 2003, it was the cruel and manipulative documentary, “Living with Michael Jackson”, of British journalist Martin Bashir, that caused Michael irreversible damage. By that time, the tabloid press had unethically been portraying Michael as a freak for over a decade, and because Bashir’s documentary affirmed existing suspicions, the objectivity of it was not doubted. It should have been, though, since what Bashir did, was make Michael look weird by taking brief glimpses of his life out of context. Because of that, people who didn’t know Michael were disturbed by what they heard him say in the documentary.
Many of Michael’s words were ignored by editing them out of the documentary, therefore completely twisting the truth around. On top of that, Bashir, who narrated the documentary, literally told people that they SHOULD be disturbed by what they saw and heard. Bashir, if anyone, who was supposed to be an objective, ethical responsibly behaving journalist, repeatedly stated that Michael’s statements made him very uncomfortable.
It had clearly from the beginning been Bashir’s intention to humiliate Michael in every possible way in order to win the highest ratings he possibly could. As it turned out he had been editing the material in the most sensationalistic way imaginable. His bashing, subjective documentary totally lacked integrity and was highly responsible for Michael falsely being accused of child molestation once more, in November that year.
As soon as the news about the accusations against Michael broke, news channels immediately abandoned their schedules and started 24-hour coverage on the story. When it turned out that it was Gavin Arvizo, the boy with whom Michael was holding hands in Bashir’s bashing documentary, the media became literally obsessed by the scandal. At that time, with nothing known about the exact allegations, yet, and prosecutors not answering questions, they began producing hour-long specials. The possibility of the allegations being false was not even considered, it was deliberately ignored. Michael was convicted by the media before he had even been arrested. Reports of the scandal were plagiarized as never before, without any research ever being performed. More than ever, for the sake of money, everyone wanted to be the first one to publish the story.
There had never been a trial covered to such an extent as this one against Michael, back in 2005. During the months of the trial, about twenty-two hundred media people were lined up outside the courthouse, everyone wanting to report something new about Michael Jackson.
They were behaving as unethical as to use specific camera angles and lightning to accentuate his nose, his cheeks, his skin tone, just to make him look like the freak they were portraying and, most importantly, to get their twisted and truth-ignoring stories sold.
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With the trial getting started, it soon became clear to those present in the courtroom, that no hard evidence at all could be presented. Yet, the public did not hear anything about that. Since this trial was not televised, the public was only given the information that the media were willing to feed them. News producers encouraged their journalists to focus on the prosecution, therefore of course telling only one side of the story, and Michael was dehumanized in every way possible. Journalists took every opportunity to report the newest dirt about him, just to get high ratings and make big money. They were totally out of control. Whenever a witness said anything salacious or dramatic about Michael, they would run outside to report to the world that things were looking bad for him. However, by running outside, they missed the subsequent cross-examination, that would, without exception, discredit previous lurid allegations! Again, they ignored the truth!
In the early morning of accuser Gavin Arvizo’s examination, Michael was so unfortunate as to slip in his shower and bruise his lung, making it necessary to rush him to the hospital in his pajama trousers. As the judge refused to grant Michael some more time to get properly dressed before appearing at the courthouse, yet, instead threatened to put him in jail and revoke his bail, Michael was forced to appear in his pajama trousers. The media just loved it and named this day ‘Pajama Day’. The photographs of Michael spread all over the world, and, of course, Michael’s bad luck and the reason he was wearing his pajama trousers was completely ignored. Instead, Michael was accused of behaving eccentric. The media were manipulating the moment, as Thomas Mesereau, Michael’s lawyer at the time of the trial, calls it in this interview:
The day following Michael’s appearance in his pajama trousers, reports about Gavin Arvizo’s examinations spread all over the world. The media, of course, didn’t fail to report about the horrible allegations made by the boy. Unfortunately, but unsurprisingly, the boy’s cross-examination, during which Thomas Mesereau proved that Gavin’s allegations were one big lie, and that Gavin and his brother had made each other contradicting allegations, was completely ignored. The media were reporting anything (especially about his appearance) that brought Michael down, just to avoid discussing the boy’s cross-examination. They clearly realized that the cross- examination severely undermined the prosecution’s case, but refused to report that point to the public!
When the prosecution rested, the media simply seemed to turn away from the trial. The defense case was given considerably less attention both in the newspapers and on TV. With the truth starting to sink in, they chose to continue portraying Michael as almost demonic, accusing him of the worst crime a man can commit. They ignored the facts brought forward that exonerated Michael. Boys came forward to say that nothing sexual ever happened in their times spent with Michael, and Thomas Mesereau pointed out more than once that Michael was a true humanitarian, who had helped hundreds of thousands of children all over the world, who had been visiting a children’s hospital or orphanage ahead of each and every concert he performed.
Michael’s acquittal on all counts meant a financial disaster for the tabloid media. His imprisonment, though, would have meant a blooming industry for them, earning them millions of dollars. There would have been numerous stories about Michael’s life in prison. Already before the jury began its deliberations, reporters were making arrangements to follow Michael’s daily schedule behind bars. It was even considered to fly a helicopter over the prison yard and film him exercising.
With Michael walking out of the courtroom as a free man, for the tabloid media, the story was over. No one felt responsible for what was done to him and no one was held responsible for it. Without making apologies and without making any effort to explain to the public what had really happened, media people just left the scene. Several journalists even felt the need to feed the public with the ridiculous thought that Michael had ‘bought’ his freedom, and that he was found ‘not guilty by reason of celebrity’. The truth, Michael clearly proven completely innocent of all charges made against him, was totally ignored. With the legal system declaring him innocent, he should have felt vindicated, but thanks to the media’s unfair, one-sided coverage of the trial, thanks to their on-going unethical behavior, he could never feel truly vindicated.
When Michael, four years after his acquittal, suddenly passed away, the media immediately went into overdrive and unethical behavior prevailed, again. First of all, when, after hours of speculation by reporters on television, Michael was pronounced dead, it was sensationally called breaking news. For myself, I remember how I was shocked the next morning by footage shown on television of Michael’s lifeless body, covered in what seemed to be either a white sheet or a white body bag, being moved from a helicopter into an ambulance that was going to transfer him to the coroner’s office.
At that time, looking at the scene not only filled me with a feeling of deep grief, but also, it caused me feelings of disgust and great anger. I noticed the great disrespect that was shown towards this wonderful man that I, without having been a devoted fan of his music, up to then, and without being aware of his numerous humanitarian deeds at that time, had at least always sincerely liked and appreciated. I just couldn’t understand why at all the whole world apparently needed to be shown footage like this. According to me, it just went too far. I considered it a shameless invasion of privacy, totally lacking of respect and integrity towards Michael, his children, his family, his friends and his millions of fans around the world. The footage was also disgustingly presented as breaking news.
Soon, also the highly discussed last photo of Michael, taken of him in the ambulance that would transfer him to the hospital, appeared everywhere. With Michael’s bodyguards, from the concerned expression on their faces, almost begging the paparazzo to stop making photos, because apparantly something was very wrong, the latter just kept pressing his camera lens against the ambulance window and made what would turn out to be a “money shot”. When it became clear that this was either the last photo taken of Michael alive, or the first one taken of him dead, the photo was quickly sold to the highest bidder – tabloid magazine OK!
It is another element of the codes of ethics for journalists that compassion should be shown for those who may be adversely affected by news coverage. Needless to add that every sincere thinking and behaving person will understand that the above mentioned behavior completely lacked ethical responsibility!
In the days following Michael’s passing, the tabloid media just couldn’t wait to publish the first bashing reports about Michael’s alleged drug addiction. No journalist thought about writing an ethically-obtained article that would take into consideration all the medical issues Michael had been confronted with throughout his life. First, the accident back in 1984, when Michael severely burnt his scalp during the filming of the Pepsi commercial, from which he had been suffering unbearable pains during the rest of his life, was ignored. Next, the fact that Michael was, besides Vitiligo, suffering from the auto-immune disease, Lupus, which forced him to undergo painful medical treatments, was ignored. Also, Michael’s insomnia, from which he had been suffering almost throughout his entire career, was ignored.
Then, the serious bridge accident, that occurred during a televised performance back in 1999, that caused Michael severe back pains during the last ten years of his life, was ignored. Last, but not least, the mental pain, the stress that Michael had been coping with during the 2005 unfair trial that was done to him, and the mental effect on him from never having felt truly vindicated, was, of course (!), ignored. Overall, the fact that Michael badly needed medication to sleep and to relieve severe physical and mental pains, especially while preparing for his concert tour, was ignored.
As mentioned above, the internationally existing codes of ethics are voluntarily embraced by thousands and are widely used as a guide for ethical behavior, yet, not legally enforceable. The question of making them so has been debated off and on for decades, but it was felt that this would restrict their rights to free speech and free press. This explains how Michael could hardly undertake legal action against all the injustice done to him over the years by numerous unethical behaving journalists. He always made it clear, though, both in his words and in his music, how he felt about the tabloid press in songs such as Privacy, Tabloid Junkie and Leave Me Alone.
Even after his passing, in order to attain high ratings and to earn big money, the tabloid press cowardly continued to tear Michael apart, to publish stories that would drag him down. As mentioned earlier, the only excuse they always know to come forward with to defend their completely unethical behavior is to state that they are writing the stories that the public wants to read.
With Australian choreographer Wade Robson aiming for a slice of Michael’s Estate and a trial set for June 2, we better be prepared for new attempts of the tabloid media to earn big money by bringing Michael down, again. Robson, at the 2005 molestation trial vehemently denied under oath that Michael had sexually abused him, and he was a key reason for Michael’s acquittal.
Thomas Mesereau says Robson was his star witness at the trial, not making just one statement that nothing had ever happened, but instead repeatedly giving powerful testimony that Michael was his friend, that Michael had never touched him inadvertently or improperly. He even gave interviews after the trial, where he also said the accusations were ridiculous and nothing ever happened. Yet, he now accuses Michael of abusing him for seven years when he was a child, and claims that Michael was a sexual predator who brainwashed him.
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In case of online articles we can stay away from them by not clicking on the links and also by not sharing them! That way, not only will we be deriving the tabloid media from the big money they are so badly yearning for, but most importantly for us, his loving fans, will we be doing the exact same thing to them that they have been doing to Michael with the truth for too many years – IGNORE them!!!
Yvonne Verhagen
http://www.legendarymichaeljackson.nl/arti...ake-of-money-2/
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