VIDEO: Sky News

Here is a clip of my appearance on Sky News on the morning of Saturday 8th October, which I wrote about in my last blog entry.

Sky News

On June 25th 2009, in the hours after Michael Jackson passed away, I was contacted by several rolling news channels who wanted to interview a 'Jackson expert' live on-air. By the morning of June 26th, I had appeared via telephone on BBC News 24, BBC World Service and Sky News.

Since then I hadn't heard much from any of them - perhaps because in the weeks after Jackson's death I declined a few appearances - but this Friday I received a surprise phone call from Sky News, looking for somebody to appear on-air the following morning and chat about Saturday's 'Forever Michael' tribute concert in Cardiff.


It was a brief appearance but fairly successful for a first ever live TV studio interview, by which I mean it was uneventful; I didn't faint, freeze up or barf into the host's lap. Although I did get home later one and notice this:


Did you spot that?

I'll zoom in.


Yes, Sky News became the latest in a long line of media organisations to misspell my name. But never mind. As live TV goes, it's a minor complaint.

I was blindsided by a few questions on Paul McCartney's wedding, about which I knew nothing except what I'd briefly read on the front page of the Mirror in the Sky News green room ten minutes previously. Fortunately, the McCartney questions weren't too probing. I think I got away with it.



I will post video of my appearance shortly.

The Phantom TMZ By-Line

I received several emails today asking me why Google News was touting me as the author of an article on TMZ. At first, I thought there must be some sort of mix-up on the fans' part; Why on earth would Google be listing me as the author of an article on TMZ? I've never written for TMZ. But I made my way over to Google News and, lo' and behold, there was my name, listed underneath a TMZ story about Michael Jackson sound-alike Jason Malachi.

Fans suggested that this was some sort of petty retaliation on TMZ's part after I wrote a lengthy rebuttal last week to one of their articles. On Thursday 13th January, TMZ ran a story titled 'MJ Pushed Dr. To Improperly Give Son Anesthesia', accusing Michael Jackson of subjecting his youngest son to 'risky' medical treatment. I was contacted by Sawf News, with whom I have a rolling contract, who asked me to write some sort of commentary on the story.

After obtaining legal documents relating to the case, consulting official medical guidelines and putting TMZ's coverage under the microscope, I found that it was riddled with half-truths, misleading language and pure sensationalism. My resulting article, 'Making a Mountain out of a Molar: How TMZ turned a dental appointment into a global news story', generated huge traffic for Sawf News and became the website's most commented article.

My rebuttal was published on Friday 14th January and the TMZ article with my by-line attached appeared on Google News just two days later, causing fans to speculate that this was somebody at TMZ's idea of a joke, or an attempt to turn my supporters against me by giving the appearance that I had joined TMZ's ranks less than 48 hours after scrutinizing their reporting.

As it turns out, this phantom by-line is linked to my Sawf News article, but not in the way that the fans thought. I consulted an internet expert this evening who told me that my being listed as the author of TMZ's article is a result of a weakness in Google's news aggregation system.

After I wrote my rebuttal, lots of fans took to posting it in its entirity in the comments section underneath all of TMZ's latest entries on Michael Jackson. When TMZ's article about Jason Malachi went online, they did the same thing.

According to the internet bod I consulted, when the Google news aggregation system hosts an article, it scans for a by-line. In the case of this article, there was no official by-line. However, further down the page somebody had posted my Sawf News article in the comments section, including the words 'by Charles Thomson'. The news aggregator will have scanned for a by-line, picked up mine from the comments section and consequently listed me on Google as the author of TMZ's article.

Mystery solved!

To my knowledge, there is nothing I can do about this. In my previous dealings with Google I have found them to have what I consider to be the worst user support system I have ever encountered.

I have attempted to contact Google on various occasions throughout the last year to deal with people using their email service to impersonate me and their blog service to publish damaging lies about me. Upon telephoning Google I was consistently met with an audio recording telling me that 'Google does not authorize customer services at this time', whatever that means.

Their online assistance service was no more helpful, consisting of a text-based Q&A system which sends users around in circles and an advice forum full of knowledgeable but unpaid users who, however technically able, are not capable of dealing with slander and/or impersonation. I suspect they'll be equally incapable of removing inaccurate by-lines from Google News.

So this is just a quick blog to let you know that I am not the author of TMZ's article and explain why Google seems to think that I am.

Cazwell Interview - A Teaser

I recently interviewed US rapper Cazwell for Sawf News. The full article will go online in the coming days - and I will update the blog when it goes live - but in the meantime here's a short teaser, in which Cazwell talks to me about homophobia in the hip-hop industry.

Ian Halperin: King of Plop

As the media frenzy over Michael Jackson's death enters its third week, stories are beginning to run out. The seemingly endless parade of Jackson 'friends' and 'insiders' is thinning and news outlets are stuck in limbo as they await the results of Jackson's autopsy. In the absence of any new or concrete information about Jackson's death, newspapers are becoming desperate for fodder. So desperate, in fact, that British red-top The Sun today publishes two separate 'Jacko' stories attributed to one Ian Halperin.

For those who don't know, Halperin is a celebrity blogger who has spent the last 8 months publicising an upcoming Jackson biography. He has done so by releasing a steady stream of fictitious stories about the popstar to any media outlet desperate or gullible enough to print them. In this era of cost-cutting, almost every media outlet in the Western world has swallowed and regurgitated his outlandish claims without hesitation.

Today's Halperin exclusives include revelations about Jackson's 'secret gay life'. The star, alleges Halperin, would disguise himself as a woman and sneak out to a motel to sleep with a male construction worker.

But here lies the problem: Halperin is a proven liar and a fantasist.

In November 2008 Halperin made headlines the world over when he claimed that Jackson had been struck down by a genetic lung condition known as Alpha 1, leaving him blind in one eye and unable to speak. In his blog entry he fabricated a confirmation from Jermaine Jackson and offered to provide proof of his findings the following week. That proof never materialised.

Halperin is now making much of the fact that he accurately predicted Jackson's untimely demise, carefully neglecting to mention that last month's tragic events were no more than a convenient coincidence. Halperin claimed Jackson would die within 6 months of a genetic lung disease... He died 8 months later of a suspected overdose.

Shortly after his lung disease story went global, Halperin claimed that Jackson had been booked to perform on the yacht of a Russian billionaire. This story also proved untrue.

In April 2009 Halperin appeared on British television claiming that the star hadn't shown up to any of the rehearsals for his London concerts. In actuality the star was rehearsing five days per week at Centre Staging Studios in Burbank, LA.

Halperin's credibility was further diminished when, in the wake of the lung disease fallout, he was exposed as having lied about receiving a prestigious award. The blogger's bio claimed that he had been awarded the 1985 Rolling Stone award for investigative journalism. But the magazine itself issued a statement saying that nobody of that name had been handed any such award, rather that the award had been given to an entire newspaper staff, in which Halperin had been a minor player.

In spite of his track record, Halperin's Jackson biography is sure to fly off of the shelves when it is released later this month. But why does the media continue to quote him as an authoritative source on Jackson when every story he has released about the star thus far has proven entirely false?

Halperin's ability to consistently sneak his fabricated Jackson stories past fact checkers and into newspapers the world over is churnalism in action. Too few reporters filling too many pages leaves too little time for fact checking. When a chancer like Halperin comes along and hands them a story on a plate, they thank their lucky stars, lay it on a page and move onto the next task. Everybody's happy - Halperin gets his publicity and the newspaper fills vital space.

The losers, though, are Jackson's family. His fans too and, when he was still around, Jackson himself. Not to mention the general public. Misinformation is rife at the best of times, but with this rush for Jackson material, less and less time is being dedicated to fact checking.

Reporting on Michael Jackson has always been less than ethical. The man is a target for bogus stories. AEG head honcho Randy Phillips said in an interview earlier this year, "I was sitting opposite Michael Jackson in a meeting one morning and suddenly a news alert popped up that he'd been struck down with a flesh eating virus."

Halperin's articles have been repeatedly proven false. His biography is certain to be littered with similar errors. Readers beware - in death Jackson will be an even bigger target for shoddy reporting than he was in life.

More on the Jackson situation as it develops.