Conrad Murray Found Guilty In Trial - Fans & Advocates Release Post Verdict Reflection

Post Verdict Reflection by Michael Jackson Fans & Advocates.

Today, the jury in the trial of The People v Conrad Murray returned a Guilty verdict.

In a statement sent to media outlets, we expressed our gratitude and appreciation to the jurors who put their lives on hold to serve their community, to DDA David Walgren and DDA Deborah Brazil for the outstanding case they presented, and to the honorable Judge Pastor, who ensured this trial – in the courtroom at least – did not echo the disgrace of 2005 and pander to a selective, hystericized media.

Even though this verdict can never compensate for the profound loss that Michael Jackson and his children – Prince, Paris and Blanket, family, friends and fans have suffered – and will continue to; what it does achieve is this:

It declares publicly, the undeniable truth that Conrad Murray's actions and inconceivable omissions led directly to the death of a human being. It doesn't matter whether that human being was Michael Jackson or anyone else. Michael was a friend, brother, son and a father. He was a person. Yes, an unfeasibly famous one. But still a person.

In reaching this result, the court has recognized that something precious was taken – a life. A life that mattered and will always matter, not least because for so long that life was treated with so little regard and even less basic human decency.

Predictably, of course, now that the verdict has come in, there will be endless debates by media and the usual talking heads about whether it was the right one. Our position is that it is. But we recognise that there are wider questions. This reflection talks about some of those questions and the implications of this trial.

Most of the public tuning into this trial were presented with a picture of Michael Jackson and the fans, that in reality has very little connection to fact. Michael Jackson was not the demanding, selfish ‘addict’ he was typically painted as by many in the media, and most of the fans were certainly not all dressing up in front of the courthouse as a small minority chose to. [Note: Most of the fans at the courthouse were actually not doing this either].

The truth, however, is rather different.

Most Michael Jackson fans are ordinary citizens with ordinary concerns and aspirations. Just like you; we have kids at college, are paying off mortgages, working in jobs we either love or tolerate, are studying for a better life – and just trying to live our lives the best way we can. The only difference between us and those who saw this trial as just another high profile ‘tragic tale’ – is that for us this trial was personal.

Personal, because for decades we have supported and loved Michael for the human being that he was. This was never about how great a performer he was, or how many records he sold or broke. This much delayed trial was about trying to get justice – albeit limited, for Michael, his family, and us – the fans.

This has now been achieved.

But what we also clearly saw in this trial, was the same disturbing distortion we witnessed in 1993, in the years in between, in 2003/5 – and since. Billed as the trial of the century by some, or at least in the running, it was Michael Jackson’s celebrity that stoked the interest of worldwide media in this case and underpinned their attempts to turn the trial of Conrad Murray into the second trial of Michael Jackson.

Whether or not that media accurately reflected or influence the opinions of ordinary people around the world cannot be calculated, but it is certainly no stretch to state it reflected and influenced some of it. The media’s unique role in directing the tone and content of national and international conversation about this trial, evidently reflected the relationship that existed – and still exists, between Michael Jackson and the media.

For over 40 years, approximately the same time he was thrust onto the world stage as a child star, Michael has occupied a complex place in world culture. Evolving from an adored child of America to powerful advocate for those he felt were overlooked and in need – Michael consistently used his profile and resources to help others.

Before any other modern celebrity and to an extent that hasn’t been equalled since, far from being the narcissist he was routinely painted as, Michael Jackson’s endorsement of organizations such as: – Make A Wish, the United Negro College Fund, his fundraising efforts for the Horn of Africa famine relief, his work in collecting funds to vaccinate over 5000 children in developing countries against childhood diseases, assisting the ‘Pajama project’ in providing books, toys and pajamas to children – not to mention Michael’s own organization’s Heal The World Foundation work in Sarajevo, drug and alcohol abuse education in the USA, and work in raising funds for paedriatric AIDS research; Michael Jackson’s lasting and indisputable commitment to the alleviation of global suffering of our some of most vulnerable social groups stands as a peerless achievement.

Yet none of these achievements were mentioned in the day to day coverage by the media during this trial. With something exceeding glee, the public were blanketed 24/7 to re-cycled images and audio of a man at a critically life-threatening point in his life. Media coverage during the trial invariably misinformed American audiences with the opinions of invested tabloid reporters, miscellaneous talking heads, past employees, those who were once Michael’s friends (but no longer) – and more rarely actual friends.

The question of direct and immediate causality for Michael’s death was clearly answered by the court – but there is a wider one. Media focus during the trial understandably centered on Conrad Murray and Michael Jackson, but whose lens were we viewing that focus through? Whose voices were we hearing, reading and watching?

As renowned author, scholar and music critic Joseph Vogel in a recent seminal article ‘Am I the Beast You Visualized?’ The Cultural Abuse of Michael Jackson,’ pointedly wrote:

“We have heard the point made over and over these past few weeks: It is not Michael Jackson currently on trial; it is Dr. Conrad Murray. But, of course, we know the reality. This is the ‘Michael Jackson Death Trial.’ He is, as he always was, the main event, the tantalizing spectacle. It is Michael Jackson who is under the microscope as we pry, one more time, through his home, his medical records, his body.”

In the run-up to the trial of Conrad Murray, the media didn’t even attempt to deny the sensationalist nature of their interest. After the payload of 2005, this trial was, after all – the next best thing. In July of this year, respected journalist and media critic, Tim Rutten heavily criticized the increasing tabloid directionalism most networks and press outlets now unashamedly promote as valid news.

In his article, ‘The Threat of Nancy Grace,’ Rutten asked:

“Why does HLN, a sister channel of CNN, give Grace this sort of abusive license? The answer is simple: Ever since it abandoned its straightforward news cycle some years ago, the one-time Headline News has struggled to find an audience — and, of course, revenue. An unremitting focus on sensational criminal cases — most of them involving missing or dead white women or children — with Grace's snarl at the center of the coverage has provided that audience. HLN's saturation coverage of the Anthony trial doubled its daytime ratings and nearly tripled its share of the lucrative prime-time audience.”

Rutten also quoted Scott Safon’s on-record comments to the New York Times earlier this year when Safon – executive Vice President for CNN Worldwide and the man responsible for managing the domestic US television network HLN – said: “I want to replicate this [Anthony trial coverage] when the Conrad Murray trial starts.”

Rutten’s closing question in the same article, leaves no doubts as to his thoughts about the above statement by Safon: “Is Turner Broadcasting's abuse of its power as a news organization through the biased coverage of criminal trials really any less a betrayal of public trust than the Murdoch tabloid scandal now underway in Britain? ”

Good question. Is it?

British media commentator and academic, Professor Brian Cathcart, who teaches Journalism at Kingston University, London, and founded the highly successful Hacked Off Campaign – an organization launched in the wake of the still on-going hacking scandal that continues to rock Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp organzation on both sides of the pond – recently wrote damningly about the behavior of the UK’s Daily Mail newspaper in its coverage of British Actor, Hugh Grant.

In his article, ‘The Mail and Hugh Grant: flagrant intimidation,’ Cathcart described how Grant, rehabilitated and now [pretty excellent, actually] media ethics activist, had been subjected to intrusive and personalized targeting by the Daily Mail, as a direct result of Grant’s public denouncements against media overstepping of individual’s Privacy rights and illegal trading in confidential information by specific outlets.

Cathcart wrote: “The Mail’s great broadside against Grant has nothing to do with morality and nothing to do with the perils of fatherhood outside wedlock. It is simply an act of intimidation. The actor has been a prominent critic of privacy intrusion by the press and the Mail has chosen to make an example of him.

It is saying to any prominent person who challenges the press: if you speak out, this is what we will do to you. One of the most vivid insights into the culture of the old News of the World was a conversation from 2002 that happily was recorded for posterity. “That is what we do,” a news editor told a reporter, “we go out and destroy other people’s lives.”

The Mail plays the same game, and its technique in this case is wilful distortion. Take three facts and from those facts derive a dozen assumptions, all of which fit your agenda. From those assumptions weave a narrative as demeaning as can be contrived, and then pile the outrage on top. Never mind that the same three facts could provide the foundation of five entirely different narratives, leading to entirely different perspectives on those involved. ”

This is horrifying and it is happening. Now.

Many public figures, those that dare to put their heads above the parapet to address what Cathcart calls the Daily Mail’s desperation “to blunt the message that the unregulated mass-circulation press – the press that gave us hacking, the McCann case, the Christopher Jefferies case and so many others – is a threat to the health of our society,” are now finding themselves subjected to similar invasive ’stories’ by certain outlets in the British press.

Tellingly, the reason why the hacking scandal grabbed then pummelled international headlines was because the now defunct News of the World newspaper didn’t limit its criminality to British Princes, celebrities and politicians. It went much further.

Nick Davies – the phenomenal, British, newspaper journalist at the Guardian newspaper, who had been tracking and reporting the evidence against the News of the World for over 4 years prior to the Milly Dowler breakthrough story – broke that shocking story to the world on July 4, 2011. Davies’s story revealed, harrowingly, how missing schoolgirl Milly’s Dowler’s family – desperately waiting for news of Milly – had thought she was still alive when the previously full in-box of voicemails on Milly’s mobile was suddenly able to receive voicemails.

Naturally, Milly’s family assumed Milly was deleting the old voicemails. Their hope and their joy was to be shortlived however. As it turned out, the person deleting voicemails left for Milly was Glenn Mulcaire, a private investigator employed, until very recently, by yet-to-be-determined, senior staff at the News of the World. The reason? To obtain the inside scoop on the Milly Dowler ‘story’ in order to publish and sell newspapers.

The British public were disgusted. One, because the abuse of Milly Dowler and her family’s privacy is, and will remain, a universally agreed low for journalism, but also, secondly, because they perceived it as involving an ‘ordinary person.’ One of them. This distinction between what is considered appropriate journalistic ethics in relation to an ‘ordinary’ individual or a ‘celebrity/public’ individual was made time and time again by commentators in, and by the media, over the weeks and months that followed the Milly Dowler story.

The truth, of course, is simpler. When it comes to damaging, false, explicit or any other serious matter; the things that hurt someone who is famous will equally hurt someone who is not. In fact, the fall-out is often more acute when the person (s) concerned is famous. If a person is considered too privileged or ‘lucky,’ the world will turn on their ‘missteps’ quicker than you can say Tiger Woods.

The distinction between the rights and wrongs of press intrusion into so-called ‘private’ and ‘public’ individuals is a baseless one. Apart from clearly stated instances of public interest, there is no justification for the kind of gross overstepping of media ethics the News of the World – and others – engaged in, and perhaps still do.

None of the above was news to Fleet Street – or Michael Jackson fans.

For years, we have watched helplessly while Michael was slowly dismembered and misrepresented by inflated, inaccurate incendiary stories that had no basis in fact. Word by word, headline by headline, the pressure on one human being was intolerable. Michael wrote about it, sang about it, talked about it. But no-one was listening. No-one but those close to him and us, the fans.

The reason Michael Jackson was treated this way? As always, the bottom line – money. Careers were made, air-time was filled, TV shows shlocked viewers and copy was sold. The reality is; that with few exceptions, if one looks at the media’s coverage over the past twenty plus years of not only the legal challenges Michael faced during his life but also typical news stories, there are relatively few examples of any serious attempt to inform and neutrally cover Michael’s life.

In death, it was no different.

Across-the-board media bombarded the public with stories from opportunists eager for their 15 minutes of fame. From would-be ‘I’m-the’real’daddy’ contenders, to ‘here-buy-my-book/DVD/tapes,’ to Maureen Orth on June 26, 2011, unbelievably telling then host at MSNBC’s Morning Joe program, Matt Lauer, that “I think this ending is great for Michael”, and “He would have wanted to go out this way,” to ‘exclusives’ from everyone and anyone that ever set eyes on Michael Jackson; the queue around the block for face-time by these characters was unprecedented, and inevitably – paid for by media outlets.

During Conrad Murray’s trial, in a million bars and workplaces around the world, from sofas and news-stands, advert screens at Times Square, New York and Piccadilly Circus, London – Michael’s life and death was autopsied by the very people that in an authentic, larger understanding of cause and effect played a critical role in exacerbating the context that would eventually bring June 25, 2009 into being.

This trial was yet another opportunity for the media to continue making money at the expense of Michael’s character – and the truth. For weeks we have watched and listened while the media ignored the clear facts of Michael Jackson's autopsy and toxicology reports and the reality that he died from acute propofol intoxication, preferring to speculate about issues unrelated to the crucial events of June 25, 2009.

On a daily basis and almost uniformly, sweeping, assumptive judgements were made about Michael Jackson’s life and character by large sections of the media in order to draw eyeballs, ratings and clicks to their outlets. As a result, they painted a picture of Michael Jackson far removed from the reality of a man, in fact, being inadequately treated by the doctor paid to care for him.

It is a well documented fact, corroborated by numerous statements by both Michael Jackson and those who knew or treated him over the years, that Michael suffered from the nightmare of insomnia. It is also a fact that Conrad Murray’s choice to ignore rudimentary safety procedures when administering a demonstrably inappropriate drug to treat that condition led directly to Michael’s death.

While most of the media or independent commentators did not focus on these facts, there were exceptions. Beth Karas, Anthony McCartney, Linda Deutsch and the Associated Press, Law Med, Dr Barry Friedberg, Sky’s Michael McParland, Michael C. Barnes, Dr Patrick Treacy, Matt Semino, Thomas Mesereau, and those of Michael’s friends who spoke up for him – voices that avoided easy soundbites and paid attention to the facts Michael Jackson’s toxicology and autopsy reports established.

Mostly, however, lowest common denominators like TMZ, Harvey Levin, Bill Handel, Dr Drew, legal anachronism Brian Oxman, and the UK’s Kelvin Mackenzie and The Daily Mail chose to either deliberately or simply incompetently disregard those facts.

The misreporting of the circumstances surrounding Michael’s death began just hours after he died. Wilful ignorance of the facts was typified by a story in Britain's Sun newspaper on June 29, 2009, which quoted extensively from a fake autopsy report. The content of this bogus report was then replicated all over the world.

As well as referring to a “network of scars” on Michael's face, which turned out not to exist, the Sun's story spoke of a chest “wound” supposedly caused by recent skin cancer surgery. The Sun further claimed that the bridge of Michael’s nose had “vanished,” his nose had “caved in” on one side, and that he had cuts on his back and puncture marks all over his body. Each and every one of these claims would prove to be false.

In fact Coroner Dr Christopher Rogers, testifying for the prosecution in Murray’s trial stated that Michael Jackson was “healthier than the average person his age.”

The toxicology report established that there was no Demerol in Michael Jackson’s system when he died. In addition, no evidence of Demerol withdrawal was feasily proven by the defense at this trial. Yet this red herring was continually offered up as mitigation for Murray’s criminality by many in the media for one reason: generating controversial content in order to drive up ratings.

For years Michael Jackson said he had Vitiligo. An inhibitive and exposing condition for anyone – but even more so for a black man whose life was lived so publicly – how painful must it have been to be continually accused of ‘hating’ his own race when in fact the truth was anything but?

That Michael Jackson had the condition of vitiligo was established as a matter of record by the autopsy report of June 26, 2009.

With this verdict we hope that people around the world take a long, hard look at those responsible for informing them with accurate facts – and further, asks serious questions about the growing trend in high profile trials for lawyers to use PR teams to feed deliberately distracting stories to waiting outlets while juries have yet to be chosen.

We would like to be clear: We welcome this verdict and applaud those who fought for it and awarded it; but it is not the whole story of how we arrived here.

Somewhere along the way that basic human right we all share – the right to be treated with dignity and decency and recognized as a thinking, feeling individual – was taken away from Michael Jackson. And while it was happening the only people raising the alarm were Michael’s family and friends and us – the fans.

In 1993, widespread checkbook-journalism incentivized a parade of disgruntled ex-employees and other dubious ‘sources’ selling their ‘eye-witness’ accounts on prime time. In the subsequent trial of 2005, all of these ‘sources’ would prove to be utterly without credibility.

Over the next 18 years a coterie of singularly one-sided media commentators – namely Diane Dimond, Maureen Orth, Nancy Grace, Gloria Allred, Joy Behar, Bill O’Reilly and the rest – were given carte blanche to say and write whatever they wanted to about Michael Jackson without attention to fact or journalist ethics. The result? An industry that should – and did – know better, gave credence to the patently extortionate claims of 1993 and the maliciously motivated charges of 2003/5.

After Michael’s death those who actually knew him came forward to reveal the truth of who Michael Jackson was and who he had been all along. During the trial, America and the world heard for itself in an illicit recording made by Conrad Murray, the slurred but humanitarian intentions of a man who even in his lowest moment was thinking of others and what he could do to help them.

In the rush by many to diminish an exceptional man’s legacy and a lifetime spent giving, the secondary issue in this trial – the agony of long-term insomnia – has been forgotten. Michael Jackson died because of the profoundly egregious actions and inaction of Conrad Murray on June 25, 2009; but what about what was done to him for decades before?

Could any of us have lived Michael's childhood, dealt with the competing demands of uber fame and the longing for normalcy, empathized on such a core level with children in need – while yet being so reviled, used and betrayed? Could any of us have stood it? Or would we too have been confused, frightened and in need of help? Is it any wonder that Michael Jackson suffered from insomnia?

Yet amid the frenzied speculation the one question no-one is asking is: Why?

It seems a media that was content to conscript public opinion and so effectively hystericize it to act as judge and jury when Jackson was being turned into an object of worldwide derision, is now reluctant to turn that same spotlight on itself. Where is the frank self-examination of that behavior? Behavior, which – if those who participated in it are honest – know was little more than legitimized abuse by an industry that refuses all attempts to regulate itself.

During this trial an implausible defense team overtly banking on the nearly 20 years of ignorance and embedded misinformation that many still believe about a proven, innocent man, asked America and opinion around the world to swallow the premise that Michael Jackson would actually pay a man to inadequately monitor him and provide a less than 25% chance that he would wake up and see his children again.

Thankfully, 12 men and women saw through this absurdity and handed down a verdict that reflected the facts and evidence presented by an outstanding prosecution team.

Meanwhile the one question the media is still refusing to ask; what brought a man who gave so much joy, art, and selfless example, to a place where his best-case scenario was nightly oblivion – remains unanswered and unexplored? Predictably, the echo chamber continues to rattle with the wrong questions, the prurient questions. The ones that go underneath a picture of a dead, naked man on a gurney.

Is Conrad Murray the cause of Michael Jackson's death on June 25, 2009? Undeniably, and now legally, yes. But let us not forget what came before and those who share collusive responsibility for that.

What the world needs to read and watch:

Journalist Charles Thomson:

Joseph Vogel, author of ‘Man in the Music: The Creative Life and work of Michael Jackson

Man Behind the Myth: by Walking Moon Studios.

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