Posted by Seriously, is the collective media as stupid as they seem to be or are they stuck in a bubble of group-think? And does that bubble allow one to refuse to ask even the most basic questions about the tragedy surrounding Michael Jackson’s death?
The media for the most part continues to miss what’s right in front of their faces. They have already convicted Michael Jackson of being a complete drug addict, period, without any regard for the possibility that the situation may have been much more complicated.
If Jackson couldn’t sleep and was being given medication from doctors to try to treat the problem, how is that indicative Jackson was specifically seeking out medication to treat an addiction, and wasn’t solely following the orders of inept doctors he reached out to in order to treat his chronic insomnia?
Doctors may have been experimenting with trying to figure out which medication or combination of medications would work for him. Normally in this culture, if a doctor recommends you to ‘take this’, most people will take it if they are desperate enough for relief.
If there isn’t a solution to a medical problem, it is generally the practice to add medication, up the dosage or switch medications to try to solve the problem. My point being that I don’t think for one second Michael Jackson specifically hired any doctor for the sole purpose to feed him drugs for no reason at all, like many in the media are outright saying.
Context is everything. It’s one thing to say that because of the combination of chronic insomnia AND prescription-happy doctors, Jackson was ill-served and may have developed an addiction (which is yet to be confirmed publicly by the Coroner’s office).
However, some know-nothing, talking heads are speaking in a context suggesting Jackson had no real medical issue and just wanted to ‘get high’. That’s another thing altogether, which may not have any basis in fact whatsoever.
___So you say… ___
We will have to keep current news in perspective. According to the recently released affidavit, the events therein are mostly what Conrad Murray says happened. There could be things he left out, or things he outright lied to police about. Reports state that Murray withheld the fact that he made over 40 minutes worth of phone calls after he gave Jackson propofol (diprivan).
Taking a more sinister view, it could be entirely possible that Murray gave Michael Jackson propofol before 10:40AM contradicting what he told police. I have yet to hear anyone suggest that the information in the recently released affidavit are the words of Murray; not a factual, proven retelling of events.
There are some basic issues which remain confusing about these “facts”.
If Michael Jackson was still awake at least until 10:40 AM on June 25, wouldn’t Murray have gone down earlier that morning like he always did to get Jackson something to eat like chef Kai Chase says he normally did? Remember, Jackson got home from rehearsals sometime after 12:30AM. It would be almost 10 hours (at least) since the last time he had anything to eat.
Murray would have also come down to get the oxygen tanks if he was going to give Jackson the propofol. If he didn’t give Jackson propofol until 10:40AM, the cooking staff, including Kai Chase, certainly would have seen Murray come down stairs sometime before 10:40AM to get the oxygen tanks. According to Chase, Murray didn’t come down at all that morning until after 12pm.
In addition, other actions, situations and facts make everything seem questionable.
1. Jackson had rehearsals for the show in a matter of hours. Some reports say he had an afternoon rehearsal that day. Normally, Jackson would apparently be given propofol via an IV drip over the course of a full night (possibly over the course of 8 hours).
Would he really take a chance of being given propofol at 10:40AM if he would only have 2 to 4 hours of sleep (knockout time) before he would have to get right back up and prepare to go to rehearsals?
2. Murray was supposed to be monitoring Michael Jackson’s breathing, heart rate and making sure his blood had enough oxygen. However, cell phone records show he was on the phone by 11:18PM and talking for over 40 minutes until 12:05PM. Chase says Murray came down the stairs in a panic (or faking a panic) at ~12:10PM.
Something tells me it ain’t standard medical procedure for doctors to be on a cellphone making personal calls for almost 45 minutes while supposedly closely monitoring a patient who could go into cardiac arrest or stop breathing on you at any second.
3. It was security that called 911 at 12:21pm. Murray says up to (or at least) 30 minutes passed between the time he allegedly “discovered” Jackson not breathing, and the time he got someone else to call 911. So that sets the time to ~11:51AM when he allegedly finds Jackson not breathing, according to his own admission.
Remember, Murray says he gave propofol at 10:40AM. So Jackson is under (or dead) from ~10:40AM to ~11:51 AM.
4. The phone records do show Murray on the phone from 11:18AM to 12:05PM, which is smack in the middle of the time he claims he found Mike not breathing.
So from ~11:51AM to 12:05PM, Murray would have been talking on the phone. Meaning, he couldn’t have been performing CPR on Jackson for up to 30 minutes before he ran down to get “help” like his lawyer claimed he did. He would have still been on the freakin’ phone. Nor could he have been calling 911 because he admitted he never called 911.
So how can this story be accurate? What was he really doing to Michael Jackson in that house that morning?
5. Michael Jackson was reportedly dead by the time paramedics came, which was only mere minutes after the 12:21PM call to 911. We already know Murray didn’t call 911 and he didn’t run down and get security the minute he claims he discovered a lifeless Jackson. Again, Murray said 20-30 minutes ticked by before he sought help for Jackson.
He also did not move Jackson’s body to the floor to perform CPR. By his lawyer’s admission, Murray was allegedly performing CPR, with one hand, while Jackson was still on the bed. As Jackson’s Security Guard is on the phone calling for an ambulance, it is the 911 operator who has to tell the doctor to get Michael Jackson’s body to the floor and perform CPR.
Could Murray have not performed CPR in any life-saving way because he already knew Jackson was totally lifeless, not breathing, and without a pulse long before he ran down the stairs for security?
Joe Jackson speculated that Jackson may have been dead long before paramedics were called.
To be blunt, I don’t buy that he found Jackson at ~11:51PM. I also think its possible Jackson could have been dead at least 45 minutes to an hour (or more) before Murray runs down the stairs. If that’s the case, it would set the time to ~10:51AM when Mike stops breathing (11:51 – an hour).
6. So let’s say it’s ~10:51AM when Jackson stops breathing; minutes after he’s given the propofol.
Murray sets up the I.V., goes off to do… whatever the hell he was doing… while Jackson lay there dying. He comes back 10 minutes later after… using the bathroom… or taking a break… or falling asleep… or stealing…. or whatever.
Murray would HAVE to have discovered Jackson’s body at around 11:00AM, just like the police say he did. This would explain why he didn’t tell police about the phone calls he made AFTER he gave Jackson propofol.
7. Let’s speculate that he discovers Jackson’s lifeless body at ~11:00AM, panics, performs CPR for about 15 minutes. He can’t revive him. So he gets on the phone to call God knows who. That person(s) he’s talking to could have been telling him what to do, how to cover himself, or how to make it look like an accidental overdose for all we know.
How do we know that it wasn’t during the period from 11:18AM – 12:05PM (when Murray is on the cellphone) that Murray wasn’t shooting Jackson’s body up with additional medication which he now claims to have given Jackson hours earlier?
Really, how do we know at this point in time that Murray didn’t intentionally inject Jackson with much more quantities of those other medications AFTER he found Jackson’s body in order to make it look like an overdose? Or while trying to buy time hoping the propofol would somehow leave Jackson’s system?
How do we know Jackson wasn’t given an incorrect dosage of other medication while he was unconscious after the propofol drip started?
How do we know Murray wasn’t simply drowsy after being up with a non-sleeping Jackson? Or drowsy after a restless Jackson kept waking him up because he still couldn’t sleep?
According to reports, the Coroner says it was lethal levels of propofol that killed Jackson and has ruled his death a homicide. That would indicate too much of it was in his system. Did Murray give Jackson much more propofol that he normally did by mistake? On purpose?
Did Murray’s drowsiness kick in and caused him to have set the I.V. drip incorrectly? Did he dose off only to wake up to a dead Jackson?
8. According to the L.A.F.D., paramedics said Murray essentially pulled rank on them and told them to work at reviving Jackson at the house instead of immediately transporting him to the hospital.
What was the purpose of keeping Michael Jackson from getting to a hospital as quickly as possible? Reports stated paramedics say Jackson was already dead before they got there; not that he had just died, or that he had a femoral pulse, or anything like that.
Homicide means that had it not been for the actions of another person, the deceased person would not be dead. Which could mean if Murray hadn’t shot Jackson up with all that medication including the propofol, he would still be alive. Or it could mean Murray unintentionally gave him a large dosage of propofol.
At this point, the public just doesn’t know.
___What the $&?% do you know?___
What also doesn’t fit the story is that Jackson had already complained the medication other doctors had given him previously wasn’t working at all, which is why he allegedly preferred the propofol.
Why would he even take valium (which didn’t work), ativan (which didn’t work), etc. etc. when he already complained the meds didn’t work?
Which begs the question, was it Murray, not Jackson, who insisted on giving valium, ativan, etc. etc.? Jackson apparently didn’t want that $hit because it didn’t work. Police found the medications in his house which means he wasn’t drinking the pills like water, as real addicts would.
If that was the case, then it wasn’t Jackson who was asking for these medications in order to get ‘high’ or to ‘feed an addiction’. Jackson was, instead, following doctor’s orders just like he was following the orders of the other doctors; doctors who treated his illnesses by throwing medication at him.
What is known is that Murray confessed to giving the medication to Jackson. Jackson didn’t lock himself in a room and inject it. Jackson wasn’t “begging” for ativan… or valium… or restoril. Jackson hadn’t taken dozens and dozens of pills because everything in his system at the time of death was supposedly given to him by Murray.
Moreover, they only found a limited number of medication prescribed to Jackson in the house. Could the bulk of the medication taken from Jackson’s home have belonged to Murray? That is, what Murray brought with him into Jackson’s home?
There are simply too many questions left unanswered for these irresponsible, 15-minutes-of-fame-seeking, hateful, ‘i told you so’-crybaby, know-nothing talking-heads to be calling this game 10 minutes into the first quarter.
There is still no official public word from the Coroner or police yet, but members of the media are acting like they’ve got this mystery solved when they, like the rest of us, still don’t know $hit.
More important sets of questions should be asked like were these medications still in his system from the day/night prior? According to medical professionals who appeared on Larry King Live August 25 2009, valium can stay in your system for 3 days.
Can the Coroner determine the order of injection of each medicine? What were the contents of Michael Jackson’s stomach? What did the results of tests on Jackson’s brain show? What medications did Murray give Jackson after he found him not breathing? What medications did paramedics give him on the scene before they transported him, and how will they be reported in a toxicology report?
How much propofol was in Jackson’s system? Was it much more than what Murray claims he gave Jackson?
The propofol worked, or so Jackson thought. That was the one thing anybody has ever said Jackson specifically requested. Nobody said he “begged” for muscle relaxers he shouldn’t have gotten, or pain killers he should have taken.
I have the feeling the media — who thinks they know everything in this case — will have to unlearn everything they thought they knew about this tragedy and Jackson’s life during his final months of life and be retaught.
Not 24 hours after Jackson’s death, the media already had him overdosed on OxyContin and a shot of Demerol. Remember that? I do. They thought they knew everything then, too.
I would have thought this body of talking heads would have learned their lesson after they collectively got their faces cracked during the 2005 trial.
In a number of instances involving Michael Jackson, the truth is almost always the non-obvious answer. Its “obvious” to the media “Jackson was a drug addict” who “bought” Conrad Murray to “feed his addiction”. Maybe… but maybe not.
The difference between real investigative journalists and regular camera-whoring hangers-on who want to “break” the next unfounded/unconfirmed/unprovable “bombshell”, is that real investigators don’t pretend to know all the answers.
Do we know for a fact Michael Jackson was a dopehead? Nope.
Do we know he “bought” Murray to feed him drugs? Nope.
Do we know yet whether Jackson was addicted to propofol either on his own accord or by accident? Nope.
Do we know Jackson was “doctor shopping” to get massive quantities of the same prescription? Nope.
Do we know whether Jackson was trying to ‘get high’ or was simply following doctor’s orders in an attempt for some kind of relief? Nope.
Do we know what really happened in Jackson’s bedroom that day? Nope.
The things we don’t know about this case can fill the swelled heads of all the many who think they’ve got this all figured out.
I’ll give this advice: unlearn everything you think you know and look at this tragedy with fresh eyes. You may be surprised by what you find.
MJEOL