Catching Up With Jermaine Jackson

This week I published two Jermaine Jackson interviews within two days of one another, on two different continents. The first, published in the States, marked by Huffington Post 'comeback' after 15 months away. The second was Jermaine's only UK interview promoting the Jacksons' Unity Tour concerts.

I spoke to Jermaine twice last week by phone. The first time I caught him - on Monday, January 14th - he was just about to go on live TV in France to promote his solo tour with David Serero, which was what I had called to speak about.

The second time - the following morning - I called him at his hotel for our exclusive chat about the Unity Tour. By that point he had damaged his voice. He'd seen a doctor earlier that morning and been told not to speak loudly (I'm not sure I've ever heard Jermaine speak loudly - but he was even quieter than usual). He cancelled other interviews later that day to rest his vocal chords.

The Huffington Post article, published yesterday, featured interviews with Jermaine and his collaborator, French opera singer David Serero, about their joint album and French tour. The pair are currently on the road together performing 'You Are Not Alone: The Musical'. Based on Jermaine's memoirs, he tells stories about his family's years in and out of the spotlight, showing never-before-seen photographs, a well as performing songs from the family's enviable catalogue of hits. Click here to read the article.

David Serero and Jermaine Jackson in the studio recording their new album, 'I Wish You Love'.

The second article, published in the UK today, is the first interview any of the Jacksons have given this year to promote the European leg of their Unity Tour. Jermaine spoke about his memories of London, how the show was 'healing' his brothers, what fans could expect from the concerts and what progress had been made on the group's new album.

It was published in the Yellow Advertiser newspaper series - one of the largest regional newspapers in Britain, featuring 10 different editions with a combined readership of almost half a million people in and around London. It went into half the editions this week and will go into the other half next week.

Here's how it looked on the page.  Thanks very much to Harrison Funk for supplying us with the pictures.

(Click to enlarge)

If you're finding that print too difficult to read, you can read the online version by clicking here.

Daily Mail previously rapped for Jackson 'paedophile' comments

On Friday evening I wrote of an article which appeared overnight on the Daily Mail's website calling Michael Jackson a 'common paedophile'.

The article appeared the following day in the print edition of the newspaper and contained baseless allegations that the star had seduced and molested a string of young boys.

A Press Complaints Commission webpage shows that the newspaper, which famously supported the nazi party, has previously been lambasted by the PCC for printing exactly the same allegations.

The PCC ruling states that the Daily Mail referred to Jackson as a self-centred paedophile.

According to the ruling, the newspaper was forced to 'both remove the article from its website and annotate its archive accordingly.'

Seemingly the newspaper has not learned from its mistakes.

Elsewhere, a 1996 article reveals how David Jones, author of the latest Jackson hit piece, was actively involved in a Daily Mail plot to smear a writer at the Independent for disagreeing with the newspaper's political views.

Polly Toynbee tells how the Daily Mail attempted to label her a 'marriage-breaker' simply because she began dating a separated man.

She writes:

"First hint that something was up: people start getting calls from a David Jones of the Daily Mail, digging for dirt. Colleagues in this office get calls. Mr Jones is ferreting away among friends, collecting quotes. The story he seems to be creating is the age-old saga of idyls destroyed by scarlet Jezebels. Mr Jones is throwing around words about me like 'marriage-breaker'.

"I am puzzled. I try to imagine how they can turn this everyday concatenation of domestic circumstance into A Story.

"...Suddenly I find it frightening. Neighbours are getting calls - some of them people I have never met. On Tuesday a man came over from No. 6, deeply worried by a call from the Mail asking detailed questions about what hours he had observed any men coming and going at my house. He suspected it was a burglar casing the joint. My 11-year-old son was terrified, but even more so when the house actually was broken into that day, for the first time in years. A coincidence, I am sure."

Scared by the way she was being pursued, Toynbee contacted a friend at the Mail. Subsequently, Jones claimed that he did not like the story but had been told to work on it by a senior reporter. Toynbee responded: "Unhappy bunny or gleeful weasel, my heart does not go out to Mr Jones or his employers."

Controversial newspaper labels Jackson a 'common paedophile'

The Daily Mail today ran an article about Evan Chandler's suicide even more ludicrous than The Mirror's offering on Thursday.

The newspaper, which famously supported the nazi party and recently came under fire for publishing a homophobic article about the death of Stephen Gately, labelled Jackson a 'common paedophile' and explicitly stated that he routinely molested young boys.

The article is factually inaccurate on every level. It claims that Jackson was found in possession of child porn - he was not. Had he been, he would have been charged with possession of child porn. Bit of a no-brainer.

It also claims that Gavin Arvizzo accused Jackson of having sex with him. A blatant fabrication.

Author of the piece David Jones pours scorn on what he portrays as conspiracy theories that the 1993 allegations were concocted by Evan Chandler for financial gain. He conveniently neglects to mention numerous pieces of factual information which prove this to be the case. He neglects to mention, for instance, that it was Evan who accused Jackson of molestation while his son maintained that he'd never been touched. He neglects to mention also that journalist Mary Fischer proved in a 1994 article how Jordan had only corroborated the story after Evan plied him with a mind-altering drug, sodium amytal, which is known to induce false memory syndrome.

But Mary Fischer is a real journalist, while David Jones simply writes obscene and factually inaccurate hit-pieces for Britain's most racist newspaper.

Like so many others, Jones points to the 1994 settlement as proof of Jackson's guilt, neglecting to mention that Jackson didn't pay the settlement - his insurance carrier did - and court documents show that Jackson didn't even agree to the settlement, which was "negotiated and paid... over the protests of Mr Jackson and his personal legal counsel."

To point out each individual inaccuracy contained within the article would probably take the best part of 5000 words. Composed largely of pure fantasy and hinging much of its information on the word of Evan Chandler's brother, the clearly biased Ray Chandler (who himself profited hugely from the fabricated claims of abuse by publishing an inadvertantly hilarious book about the 1993 scandal), the article trumps even Tanya Gold's recent Guardian editorial on the nonsense scale.

A blatant hit-piece, the article is almost certainly racially motivated and I wouldn't be at all surprised if the newspaper finds itself on the receiving end of a major lawsuit within a week. David Jones is relentlessly bilious throughout the article, which contains no hint of objectivity or journalistic integrity.

Jones repeatedly quotes US reporter Diane Dimond as some manner of expert on the case, despite the fact that she is clearly unhinged. Having repeatedly stated throughout the ninties and the early noughties that her sole ambition in life was to destroy the career of Michael Jackson, she has been described by writer Ishmael Reed as a 'Jackson stalker'. Her reporting on Jackson's trial was so biased that she was fired from CourtTV almost immediately after the verdict was announced. She has made her living slandering Jackson ever since.

Dimond subsequently penned a book about Jackson titled 'Be Careful Who You Love', which Jones inexplicably describes as 'acclaimed'. Acclaimed by who? It bombed spectacularly upon its release.

Jones has employed much the same technique as Jacques Peretti did for his 2007 documentary 'Michael Jackson: What Really Happened'. He has intentionally tracked down only interviewees who he knows have financial motives for portraying Jackson as a paedophile. He has then quoted them as objective experts.

He omits vital information which exonerates Jackson of the 1993 allegations, all the while including mountains of pure speculation, which he represents as fact. He attributes quotes to Jordan Chandler which he cannot possibly verify and even goes so far as to describe the boy's thoughts.

What he neglects to mention is that rather than being 'traumatised', as Jones claims without source in his article, Jordan Chandler reverted in later life to his original stance, which was that Jackson had never touched him. When asked to take the stand in Jackson's 2005 trial - during which Jones seems to forget that Jackson was unanimously aquitted and vindicated - Jordan refused to testify against his former friend. Meanwhile, Jackson's defence had numerous witnesses lined up who were prepared to testify that in recent years Jordan had repeatedly insisted that Jackson never touched him and his father had concocted the entire story.

A vindictive character assassination, David Jones's article is the single most irresponsible piece of journalism I have ever had the misfortune to read. He should be ashamed of himself. But somehow, I suspect that he isn't.