Day: February 18, 2005

Ridiculous Propaganda Continues from Prosecution Supporters? – MiniBullet #3 FEB 18 2005 — Amazingly, certain people are pumping media propaganda that the defense would be “desperate” enough to leak grand jury transcripts. And they’re banking on the media to be stupid enough not to ask questions about the logic of their allegation. It would seem that to even take this seriously, one has to be either on drugs or so incredibly desperate that they want to point the finger at someone else to get the attention off of them. Most feel it’s safe to say that the defense did not leak this information. According to reports, Jackson spokeswoman Raymone Bain said its “ridiculous” for anyone to claim that the defense leaked this one-sided garbage. “One-sided garbage” is my term, by the way. Apparently, this accusation is coming from pro-prosecution sympathizers who may want to get prosecutors off the hook for this illegal leak or who are trying to inject themselves into this “case”. What prosecutors or pro-prosecution sympathizers may be trying to do is have their cake and eat it too. They want to be able to taint the jury pool, smear Jackson AND blame the smear job on his lawyers. This is disgusting. The first question most family with the defense’s arguments, via released court docs, ask is why would the defense have to leak anything at all at this point? Once one starts to realize the massive amounts of ammunition the defense already has against the family – at least the info that can be gleaned from the court documents (docs) – it does become “ridiculous” to even suggest that they would have to break the law to leak anything for any reason at this point.

Jackson Bash-fest a Ratings Loser – MiniBullet #2 Update #2 FEB 18 2005 — According to a website that keeps data on ratings, zap2it.com, the 2-hour ABC Michael Jackson bash-fest was a ratings loser last night (Feb 17 2005). The defamatory report brought to the public by what is apparently the new face of ABC, accused blackmailer Martin Bashir, didn’t pull in anywhere near the numbers ABC was hoping for. The program came in third behind CBS’s “CSI” and NBC’s “The Apprentice” (for the first hour), and came in third again behind CBS’s “Without a Trace” and NBC’s “ER” (for the second hour). From the report:

At 9 p.m., “CSI” built on its strong lead-in and delivered an 18.7/28, its highest rating in at least a month. “The Apprentice” posted a 9.6/15 for NBC. The ABC special “Michael Jackson’s Secret World” averaged 6.1/9 for the hour, better than the network usually does but a far cry from the 2003 ratings monster “Living with Michael Jackson,” which had ratings nearly twice as big. …”Without a Trace,” 13.5/22, completed the CBS sweep of the night at 10 p.m. “ER” averaged 11.8/19 for NBC, and the second hour of ABC’s Jackson special came in at 6.6/11. (see ‘Survivor’ Hot, [Jackson] Not on Thursday )

One thing some observers hate more than pile-on jobs, is being told what to think by the media. What ABC should learn, and quickly, is that a number of people are just tired of being force-fed a diet of baseless speculation and innuendo; especially when they may already have reservations about the validity of the allegations against him. Allegations partially sparked by the subpoenaed Bashir himself.