Imagine that after returning from a long day of work you want to relax and watch a little TV. You turn on CNN and you see breaking news. The headline immediately catches your attention.
Anchor: Breaking news out of (Your city). A family friend of (Your Name) has come forward and raised shocking allegations that:
A: You aren’t the biological parent of your children.
B: You may be engaging in child pornography after he/she found several pictures of a young child in a bathing suit on your Blackberry.
C: You are battling mental issues and may be addicted to prescription painkillers.
But you haven’t done any of these things! Far-fetched? For the average person, probably. But this was the life of Michael Jackson.
He and other celebrities face this every day. Speculation and trumped up allegations based on little or no evidence. Of course, I am not referring to the times when someone actually did something wrong. I didn’t agree with some of the things that Michael Jackson did by any stretch of the imagination. But since his death it has made me wonder, “What exactly did he do?”
The media systematically murdered Michael Jackson long ago. That is to say that his reputation was permanently tarnished. He was tried by the words of other people daily -in the court of public opinion- even before there was any proof. He was labeled a weirdo and given names like “Wacko Jacko”. He was designated a pedophile because of the accusations of people who have now recanted their stories. Whether he was guilty of this or not is something that only he, his accusers, and God may ever really know. But what if he wasn’t? What if he WAS just a man who loved children, but was targeted by greedy people who saw an opportunity to get money?
As we now know with the recent fake death reports that all you need is a website and basic typing skills to force false stories into front page news. And because you are in the “public eye” you are an easy target. Could you imagine turning on the TV and seeing lies about yourself stated as fact? Even if you sue the source for slander the accusation is already in the atmosphere. Therefore, people have formed an opinion about you.
The reason that these media outlets are so successful is because we feed off of it too. It is a booming business. Gossip magazines scrutinize people and their economic worth, talents, relationships, and their motives. And we buy them. What if it were you on that cover? What if you had to explain this to your children? What if you lost the respect of people you cared about because of false accusations? And you never got it back. This is not just about the effects of the media on celebrities like Michael Jackson. It’s about you and I. One day we might find ourselves in this position. How would you fare?
With the coverage of his death the media is feeding like maggots off of bizarre stories that are being told. Individuals who may be telling the truth, but they may also want their fifteen minutes of fame have emerged with sensationalized details of his life seeking to get paid for their “knowledge”. No matter what’s printed though we may never be able to distinguish the false stories from the real. At this point it’s almost irrelevant anyway. The damage is done. What can we learn from his life? Before we pass judgment based on what media outlets present as fact, we need to imagine ourselves as being the one under the media’s microscope.
Article by Toya Bryant
Toya Bryant is a Freelance Writer/Blogger who focuses on promoting positive thinking and actions within the community and the family.Her blog "Tales of a Literary Nobody" [www.literarynobody.com] focuses on life and the things that affect us in it. The funny and the serious. It's about how society meets cultures and diversity unites us.
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{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
I think it’s mainstream media’s job to make money. Even though they have a duty to provide ethical journalism, I think they just played into what the public wanted to see. They sensationalized stories, and Michael Jackson was a very polarizing figure. The most bizarre, the better the sales, and Mike provided that. Although I think its in bad taste to report so much on his faults in his death, its only going to get worse with time. MJ was bigger than life, and in death he’ll be even bigger.
Great story though. The media really did murder him long ago. That’s probably why we haven’t really heard much from him since his last trial. A man can only take so much.
i think this is sad and one of the main reasons why i didn’t watch the tribute to MJ yesterday. all his life, the media has made a circus out of him and they continue to do so in his death. the media slaughtered MJ and tried to taint what he stood for. and now they are trying to canonize now that he’s gone. i think it’s all blasphemy, distasteful, and downright disrespectful what the media manages to do to people with public images.
not only them, but they manage to create these images that we idolize and it ends up being damaging to us personally. i could go on but i’ll leave my comments here…
Michael Jackson created the circus around him. The man lived in a playground and invited tons of kids to come play with him. Personally, I don’t think he molested any of those kids, but the raised eyebrows were warranted. He hung his baby over a balcony to show paparrazi and went to court in PAJAMAS….Michael Jackson was a walking circus. Besides, I get so tired of celebrities crying about media coverage, paparrazi etc. Honestly, if it weren’t for the incessant coverage he would’ve lost relevancy long ago. Im convinced that his eccentric behavior and crazy family all fed into the public’s obsession with him thus raising his music sales. Talent alone didn’t get MJ to where he was when he died.
@Alissa, *walks in….* I can’t.. I just can’t…. *walks out*
@JG*,
Me either.
I’m usually a nice person about these things, and I’m going to try and maintain that.
Consider the following: The MJ spent 44 of his 50 years in the public eye. Never granted the simple joy of walking to a neighborhood playground and playing a game of pick up basketball. Witnessed very adult behaviors (drinking, drug use, sex with groupies) at a very young age. Lived his entire life under the microscope of not only the media, but millions of adoring fans who demanded pieces of him. I read a passage where he was backstage before a performance and sought solace in a small dark corner. When asked why he said “When the music starts, everything will change.” He was very lonely and very childlike.
You mean to tell me if you lived that kind of life, you would be ‘normal’ (what is that, anyway?)
F outta here. **niceness fading… packing her playthings and going home now**
I think that Michael Jackson’s issues with the media were the result of all of these elements combined. Do I think he was troubled? Yes. That’s rather obvious. Do I believe that part of him enjoyed the some of the hype around his eccentricity? Yes. He was a showman at heart. And honestly, I think he was fine with all of the madness around him until he was accused of hurting children. Those allegations were what eventually killed him. Because he was so childlike in spirit, he probably NEVER understood how people could love him so much one minute and then completely rip him to shreds the next. And THAT is why his behavior became increasingly unstable in his later years. When I cry for Mike, it’s not because he’s gone from a world that was obviously too harsh for his gentle spirit, but that he didn’t live to see how much he was still loved.
Michael Jackson is just an example how our perceptions of someone can be altered solely based on hearsay. He was unusual no doubt about that but isn’t it funny that now that he’s dead the media is changing their tune. It’s because there was a material advantage to shredding Michael Jackson’s reputation. Just like now there is a material advantage to building him up. All the bad guys now want to look like the heroes. It’s all consumption. Many times we ( as in the general gossip mag reading public) bought in to it or even asked for the negative stories because we ignored the positive ones. But it’s only going to get worse in coming years based on the level of interest seen in stories that paint celebrities and non celebrities in a negative light.
In my opinion, his father started the process of his slow but sure murder. The media outlets just hastened the process. What his father and these outlets did to him is disgusting and despicable. If there’s a hell, may they burn in it nice and slow.
So right, Michael was the victim of mainstream media and so-called journalists like Martin Bashir and Diane Dimond. To get the truth about MJ please go to:
mjtruthnow.com