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.

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.

The Mirror, the People, and the settlement that never was...

It's a funny thing. Ever since the high-profile Michael Jackson death trial started going pear-shaped for promoter AEG Live, a lot of newspapers which carry prominent and lucrative advertising for its events have become more intent on smearing Michael Jackson than ever.

Leading the way has been The Mirror in the UK. A few weeks ago, contemporaneous emails presented at trial showed that AEG boss Randy Phillips had 'slapped' Michael Jackson because he was scared about attending a press conference. Slapped him and screamed at him 'so loud the walls shook'.

The shocking revelation was widely ignored by the press. Several days after the evidence was heard in open court, only one outlet had summoned the courage to publish it. AP did not include the testimony in its daily missive from the courtroom. The wire's reporter claimed on twitter he had been out of the courtroom sending emails when the testimony occurred.

It was only when fans started making noise about the 'cover-up' on sites like Twitter that other media companies grudgingly published the comments. AEG-sponsored newspapers like the Mirror, though, bizarrely tried to paint Michael Jackson as the bad guy. According to the first line of the Mirror's story, Jackson 'needed to be slapped'. Interestingly, the Mirror was a lot faster to publish a story last year accusing Janet Jackson of slapping a minor. A story which turned out to be a lie.

This weekend - days after Jackson's son took the stand and testified that he saw Phillips in his home while his father was not there, behaving 'aggressively' towards Jackson's doctor - the Mirror's Sunday edition, called the People, is at it again. It has published a highly misleading story about some 'FBI files' which allegedly show Michael Jackson was witnessed molesting children by multiple Neverland employees. The 'FBI files' also detail a supposed settlement with a young accuser in 1992 - before the Jordy Chandler case.

In reality, the story is a nonsense; a birds nest of mangled and misstated accusations which are neither 'new' nor 'exclusive', despite the People's repeated claims that they are. In fact, the documents are not 'FBI files' at all. This is a flat-out lie. Moreover, the claims have all been in the public domain for a very long time, some having been discredited two decades ago.

Of course, most readers won't bother to fact-check the story. Why would they? The newspaper is supposed to do that before publishing it. Sadly, it seems other media outlets can't be bothered either. Britain's Mail newspaper has already rehashed the story, evidently making no attempt to investigate its veracity before doing so.

I could go into a whole lot of detail about the claims made by the People - and the various lazy journalists who will copy and paste its story hundreds, or perhaps thousands of times onto their own websites and into their own newspapers in the coming days. But what is the point? The info is already in the public domain.

Those who hate Jackson will adopt the People's story as evidence for their case. Those with an interest in hearing both sides of Jackson's case will already know that these claims were debunked a long time ago. Nobody else will even bother to research the story. The People's readers buy the newspaper because they like and trust it. They, as intended, will believe this story and will not question it.

Briefly, however, for the record:

1) The 'FBI files' are not FBI files. They are transcripts of interviews compiled by a tabloid journalist who paid his sources - including one who, it seems, might not have actually existed.They were acquired by a PI who worked for Jackson's defence team. A decade later, he was prosecuted for tapping phones. The FBI seized all of his files, of which these tabloid interviews formed a miniscule part. The documents are therefore in the possession of the FBI - but they are not FBI files. If I order a Pizza Hut margherita to my home, that doesn't make it a 'Charles Thomson pizza'.

2) The allegations of Jackson being caught by multiple employees do not, as the People infers, come from a host of different documents. They all come from one document - a transcript of an interview with a couple called the LeMarques, who worked at Neverland in the late 80s and early 90s. The People intentionally does not state that all of these uncorroborated accusations come from just one of the documents, instead purposely misleading readers and suggesting that they're taken from a cache of evidence.

The LeMarques never contacted police about the abuse they claimed to have witnessed, instead opting to negotiate deals with tabloid newspapers - including the Mirror. Their claims were investigated by cops probing Jackson, who found the couple had agreed to add increasingly graphic details to their interviews for more and more money. Investigators concluded in the 90s that the pair had no credibility and possessed no evidence of any genuine abuse. They were called on out of desperation to testify in Jackson's 2005 trial after prosecutors watched their case begin to disintegrate, but were destroyed under cross-examination. Jurors rejected their testimony and acquitted Jackson, unanimously.

3) The supposed 'settlement' in 1992 was detailed to a tabloid reporter, for money, by a serial tipster called Taylea Shea. She never showed the reporter a document - she simply 'read it out' over the phone. A police investigation into the claim found that the boy named in the settlement did not exist, there was no record of any settlement ever being paid, and Taylea Shea disappeared into thin air. It became apparent she had used several aliases and nobody knew who she really was. She was never heard of again.

This leaves one element of the People's story standing; that Jackson 'allegedly' - what a convenient little word that is - paid $35million to two-dozen young accusers. The newspaper presents no evidence to corroborate this claim. Just a note in the tabloid reporter's documents, which the People intentionally misrepresents as an 'FBI file'.

Contrary to the People's claim, investigators knew about and investigated these files as part of their probe into Jackson in 2003/4, in which they were assisted by the FBI. Despite all of their resources, neither the Californian police nor the FBI was ever able to locate any evidence that any child besides Jordan Chandler or Jason Francia ever received a settlement.