Media stranglehold - what can we do about it?

Tori Tomkins says: "I tell people all the facts I can remember - that the family trashed Michael's property, used his credit cards and visited tourist attractions whilst they claimed they were being "held captive." That their testimonies weren't consistent or believable - that Sneddon forged fingerprint evidence on magazines that hadn't even been published at the time of the allegations - that his office fabricated phone evidence - that the prosecution had no evidence to present in court apart from two legal art books and a family with a history of lying, extortion and deceit. Yet I tell people these things and they say "Well, I suppose," as if they don't quite believe it. It is extremely frustrating - how much more evidence is needed?"

Tori’s quote shows you what an insidious stranglehold the media has over the general public. Even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, some people find it hard to let go of their pre-conceived notions. Why is that? Well, I think maybe I can shed some light on this.

As Michael said in an interview given to Magdalena, Gold Girl in 2002: 

I did know. Instinctively and intuitively I knew Michael was a genuinely good person. That was what attracted me to him - even more than his undeniable talent or his stunningly good looks. Like he told ET on the set of ‘Beat It’ he was here to “bring some kind of joy, escapism, magic to the world!”

Here is that interview: (I quoted from the 00:52 mark). 

But here is where the stranglehold of the media comes in. They have a level of trust – the very nature of the news media is that they report on events as they happen. Well, that’s how it is supposed to be at any rate. But as we now know, that is not what actually happens. These days the news media and the entertainment industry are almost indistinguishable from one another. Ratings are the name of the game and there seems to be very little concern that the ratings often come at the expense of the truth.

Last week, I was watching an episode of ‘The View’ and Barbara Walters said something that was very interesting. She was discussing the upcoming royal nuptials of Prince William to Kate Middleton and she made the point that a poll had been taken that showed the American public’s interest in the wedding was surprisingly low. Ironically, she then spent the next five minutes promoting her TV special on the same subject!

Prince William & Kate publicly announce their engagement. I wish them well!

Amusing, yes but there is a very significant point I’m trying to make. The media likes to decide what they think we should be interested in; regardless of whether we actually are or not. Arrogant, isn’t it? But not isolated. Remember the same thing happened with the Monica Lewinsky - President Clinton scandal. Despite feedback from the public that they had enough of the furore, the news reports continued to focus on it day in day out until they decided it was time to move on to a different story.

It is the same with Michael Jackson; they decided how he was to be portrayed and it seemed to matter little to them what the truth might actually be. When it came to the allegations, they determined that a guilty verdict suited their purposes best and slanted their reports that way.

Now, that sounds like a statement that would come from a fan. And many do dismiss us as “Oh, that’s just those crazy MJ fans!” It is not unexpected that as a fan I would want to believe the media was biased but the opposite is true. Initially, I believed the media must have some basis for their reports so some parts of it must be true. I didn’t want to doubt Michael but the media were so insistent that I’m afraid I did for a brief period. It was a GQ article “Was Michael Jackson Framed?” in 1994 that set me straight.

The difference is that as a fan I sought to uncover the truth. The general public were reliant on the media for that and the media failed to represent the situation fairly. I haven’t actually re-read that GQ article but from memory the author simply presents arguments for both sides of the equation – and isn’t this exactly what we desire our media to do in every single instance? Tell us the facts and then leave us to draw our own conclusions.

Given all this, ten years later I was unprepared for the media onslaught that followed the second set of allegations. Armed with the knowledge gained from the 1993 experience, I wasn’t concerned with the rumors until charges were laid. Then I was very confused. I felt sure Michael was innocent but the police must have had some evidence if they chose to charge him, right? The media were reporting like a conviction was a foregone conclusion, so they must surely have been privy to some proof that would warrant such a position? So it was with a lot of reluctance that I watched some court re-enactments of the trial (I think it was on the E! network). My reluctance turned to relief as day by day it became increasingly apparent that no such evidence existed.

My relief was so strong that I did not really ponder all that much on the media’s role. Michael would be exonerated and at that time that was all that mattered to me.

For the most part, all those things Tori mentions in her quote weren’t widely reported on during the trial…I never heard about the falsified fingerprint evidence, for example, until after Michael died. In fact, for me - the first I heard of that was on Reverend Catherine’s blog talk radio show – the one she did with William Wagener. To say I was astounded would be putting it mildly. That was huge and yet it has been completely ignored by the mainstream media. It is exactly this type of blatant and audacious disregard for the truth that is at the core of the problem. The general public do not expect the media to do this kind of thing. They believe, as I did, that if the media said something happened they had researched that item to ensure that it did occur. Conversely, if they became aware of a pertinent morsel of information, they would relay that to the waiting public.

So, this is why some people react to Tori’s facts they way they do. They may seem reluctant to believe her – after all it is quite daunting, and more than a little humiliating to acknowledge that you may have been duped for an extended period of time.  For some people, this may be close to twenty years!

Or as this fan put it:

"All these pages, 100’s of pages, many, many hours of investigation, going to the Philippines, going to Chicago, going all over the country, there’s not one scrap of evidence that Michael Jackson ever harmed a child, did anything wrong, committed any crime. It’s almost a vindication when you look at this. The FBI looked at all of these matters and said “there’s nothing here,” and I think that’s the most startling thing which I’ve seen."

It’s not a question of more evidence; the existing evidence just needs to filter through to the public at large in a medium they can trust.

The dilemma for us Michael Jackson fans is how do we get the facts to the general public if the media aren’t going to do it?