Sunday 7 July 2013

Mirror publishes another fraudulent Jackson 'FBI' story

A pattern is emerging here.

Today the Mirror has published a story claiming that FBI papers released in 2009 'admit' that an investigation into Michael Jackson was halted in the mid-80s to avoid political embarrassment, as Jackson was due to have a public meeting with President Reagan.

The story is a lie and I have to conclude that it is an intentional lie. This is the second time in eight days that the same organisation has run a completely inaccurate story based on 'FBI files' accusing Jackson of paedophilia. There are two possibilities. 1) The staff at the Mirror are completely incompetent. 2) They are smearing Michael Jackson with lies on purpose.

The story alleges that files 'admit' that Jackson was investigated for molesting two Mexican boys, but the investigation was called off because of the presidential meeting. The story is absolutely bogus.

Here is what the files really say:

After the Jordan Chandler allegations became public, a writer - not named in the files - contacted the FBI to say they had heard a rumour that Jackson was investigated for molesting two Mexican boys in the mid-80s, but the investigation had been called off for the reasons outlined in the Mirror's story.

These claims are made in the files solely by the anonymous writer, who had been unable to obtain any evidence at all that they were true. The only reason the claim appears in the files is that the writer had contacted the bureau to ask whether it was true. The bureau searched its records and found that the rumoured mid-80s investigation had never taken place - then wrote a document detailing the interaction with the writer, which is what the Mirror has quoted.



The FBI report was written, specifically, to document the fact that a writer had called to enquire about a rumoured investigation, but the FBI had concluded the rumour was untrue. However, the Mirror has chosen to totally misrepresent the contents of the document and state inaccurately that the story was in fact true.

This story - like last week's - is not only bogus, but old. It was widely misreported in 2009 when the files were released. I addressed it on this very blog, in an article which wound up being quoted in J Randy Taraborrelli's 'The Magic, The Madness, The Whole Story' as the only accurate assessment of the FBI files he was able to find.

This is the Mirror's emerging pattern; it takes a fabricated story which was discredited several years ago, pretends it is brand new, intentionally omits the fact that it is fabricated and uses it to smear Michael Jackson.

At this stage, I feel that serious questions need to be asked about what is really going on here.

Friday 5 July 2013

Radio appearance tomorrow

Tomorrow I will appear on King Jordan's radio show in New York (via telephone, alas) to discuss Michael Jackson. I imagine last week's ludicrous story in the People will be a hot topic. You can stream the show online for free at this link at 10pm UK time / 5pm NY time.

Incidentally, CNN has published a report on the People's story, calling its credibility into question. A positive step but one which, unsurprisingly, has not sparked the same global copy/paste frenzy that the original, bogus story generated.

Meanwhile, the Mirror - the People's sister newspaper - appeared on Thursday to be trying to wash its hands of the story. After becoming involved in a chain of tweets sent to me by Michael Jackson's nephew Taj and some Jackson fans, the newspaper's Twitter author published a seemingly confused tweet claiming the story was nothing to do with the Mirror and they had no idea why they were being attacked over another paper's story...


...Which might have been a valid point, were it not for the fact that the original story appeared on the Mirror's website, as did another story the following day, which repeated all of the inaccurate information.