I interview author Aphrodite Jones (Michael Jackson Conspiracy) Friday morning.
Here’s my first interview with Aphrodite (January 23, 2007).
She has a blog called "Michael Jackson Conspiracy." Here’s her last post (it’s from Nov. 14):
For months MJ fans have been asking me to respond to the biased reporting of Nancy Grace and Diane Dimond during the Jackson trial (which seems to continue to this day). Fans want to know why these biased reporters have not been called to task for being irresponible with the facts — for allegedly having agendas to try to destroy Michael Jackson.
First — let me remind everyone that Diane Dimond was fired by Court TV immediately following the Not Guilty Verdicts in the 2005 Jackson trial.
Other than appearing on Nancy Grace’s show to trash Jackson — Dimond has not been seen on TV much – her career seems to be over. I will also say that Dimond’s book was a flop — and the rumor that she had a deal with Sneddon to gain exclusive access to take photos and footage of MJ behind bars — well that’s hearsay and also a moot point…..
As for Nancy Grace –who was able to launch her successful CNN show staring with the coverage of the Jackson trial — she is loved by many and hated at the same time. Her reportage is so slanted — it borders on criminal at times. That’s just my opinion — but there was a woman who killed herself after Grace made unfair accusations so I think that speaks volumes about Grace.
Also – just to set the record striaght about Nancy Grace’s tactics — she constantly referred to 2 books that. MJ had — these books showing photos of boys were taken from MJ’s ranch in 1993 and were held by Sneddon for 10 years to use as evidence. Grace had to know thay — one thing she’s not is stupid. But Grace reffered to these books repeatedly because it made for ratings and served her pro-prosuction agenda. What a shame that she is allowed to spew venom with no counter points being made against her. CNN should be more fair. That’s just my opinion.
PS: I have the new copy of EBONY and Michael looks better than ever. What do they say? Looking good is the best revenge! MJ is a winner — a man of
God.No one can stop his genius!
I ask Aphrodite, "Why did you write this book?"
Aphrodite: "I’ve gotten into a space where I question the whole validity of media reportage. Showing the other side of the coin on a high-profile case that was completely misrepresented by the media, including myself, would be good. A launching off point for me to get into how the media makes a case that has nothing to do with the facts of a case.
"A lot of what’s out there is just people following each other like sheep. There are few people who will go against the grain."
We discuss Natalee Holloway’s disappearance in Aruba. "This girl is shark bait," says Aphrodite. "We all believe she has to have been lost at sea and devourced by sea creatures."
"My Jackson book gives facts that were presented in the court room that are exculpatory that most people do not even know."
"It’s difficult to step out and decide to criticize the media. Having been a commentator for 15 years, you don’t want to bite the hand that feeds you."
Luke: "Now that the book’s out, were your reservations [about writing it] justified?"
Aphrodite: "Not at all. I went on O’Reilly with it. Geraldo with it. I did Air America. I’ve had a number of people ask me to speak about it at lectures to universities. I did a signing in Santa Barbara a few weeks ago that went well. There’s a video on youtube about it. I won an award for "Outstanding Journalist of the Year" from the Brookins Community A.M.E. Church."
As AphroditeJones.com puts it: "Aphrodite Jones received The Outstanding Journalist Of The Year Award at an AME event attended by Gov. Arnold Schwarnegger, L.A. Police Chief William Bratton, and many other luminaries. The event celebrated 10 years of services by the Brookins Community A.M.E. Church, and during the VIP hour, Jones signed copies of Michael Jackson Conspiracy. In her award acceptance speech, Jones addressed a crowd of 2,000 people to tell them about her new journalistic effort, about the media conspiracy that exists, and asked them to "give Michael a chance." Jones was later approached by numerous attendees, who were touched by her efforts to restore Michael Jackson’s image. "
Aphrodite: "With this book, I have reached another level. I went on Al Sharpton’s radio show and got involved with the whole issue of race and bias in the courtroom."
Luke: "How do you decide that race is playing a part?"
Aphrodite: "When I was involved in the trial coverage, I didn’t see any racism. Looking back, however, I realize that Michael Jackson is the only high-profile person of color in Santa Barbara. [District attorney] Tom Sneddon has had a long-standing vendetta against him. In 1993, he couldn’t bring criminal charges. He then spent ten years looking for people who would testify against Jackson, even going out of the country.
"I see Sneddon as a good ol’ boy. I see him as being sexist and racist.
"I’m not saying race is a key factor but it is a factor."
Luke: "How hard is it to determine how large a factor race is?"
Aphrodite: "Tom Mesereau has a completely different take. He thinks that what Tom Sneddon wanted was to go after the most famous person in the world. That it had little to do with race."
"There was tremendous satisfaction by Tom Sneddon to see the whole Jackson family there…and to put these people in their place. That’s a feeling that I got."
Luke: "Did he say anything that would leave that impression?"
Aphrodite: "It wasn’t really anything that he said. It was the way he maneuvered the courtroom. The Jacksons were only provided so many seats, so that on the day of the verdict, Janet Jackson had to sit upstairs in a separate room and hear it on a loudspeaker. Why would you do that? Typically, a family is accommodated in a courtroom."
Luke: "What was your relationship like with Tom Sneddon during the trial?"
Aphrodite: "I didn’t have any relationship with him."
"I ran into a prosecution team at a restaurant. I was entertaining people from out of town. I wasn’t with the rest of the media. Sneddon came over. That time I was still on the other side of the coin, thinking that Jackson was a monster. I really had the wool pulled over my eyes. I went over and said, ‘You guys are doing a great job.’ Sneddon got up and hugged me.
"Again, that shows a little bit of the sexism.
"I’m a reporter covering it for Fox News. It’s not appropriate."
Luke: "How often does that happen to you as a reporter?"
Aphrodite: "Never."
Luke: "How common is it in these trials for reporters to take sides so that at least they’ll get inside information from one side?"
Aphrodite: "Incredibly prevelent. That’s why you see why we believe that Diane Diamond had a separate deal with Tom Sneddon. Part of the evidence for that is that she was writing a book in secret during the entire time of the trial, which was an anti-Jackson book. She anticipated a guilty verdict. She reported everything based around a guilty verdict. She got fired by Court TV days after the trial was over."
According to Wikipedia: "In 2005, Court TV, citing financial strains from expanded trial coverage on both the Scott Peterson murder case and the Michael Jackson case, decided not to renew Dimond’s contract and her entire investigative unit was disbanded."
Aphrodite: "She was so pro-prosecution and had information that nobody else had… During the raid on Neverland in 2003, Diane Diamond was the only reporter allowed to be on the premises to film it. That’s a violation of police procedure. If Sneddon was able to make that loophole for her, it tells you something about the nature of their relationship years before the trial.
"There were allegations that she was promised to have full access to Jackson if he was put behind prison bars. That’s hearsay but I’ve gotten it from a number of valid sources."
Luke: "It’s a dirty little secret of journalism that you will get far better information from somebody if you give them the feeling you are their sincere friend rather than if you simply be a professional reporter."
Aphrodite: "There are very few people who don’t fall into that trap, especially field reporters."
Luke: "I try to make people feel I am their sincere friend because that’s far more effective than simply… I always say the words that I am a disinterested reporter, I will never say that I am their sincere friend, but I will try to make them feel I am their sincere friend because I get far better information that way."
Aphrodite: "Of course. I’ve written about murderers and that’s what I do. Of course I do have a natural empathy for people who murder because I feel their pain. Some of them are just cold-blooded killers. Others of them, particularly the children I’ve talked to who committed acts of murder, while some of them are monsters, others got pulled into a scheme that was over their heads. I have had during my writing career varying degrees of quote unquote friendship.
"In terms of feigning a friendship, when I’m dealing with a monster like Cary Stayner who killed four people in Yosemite who calls me and tells me, I wonder what made me cut this woman’s head off… I have to feign being open to hearing him. It’s difficult but it’s something that you do to get the story. Every investigator knows that you have to do this."
Luke: "I am amazed at how much empathy I can develop for people whose information I need."
Aphrodite: "Right."
Luke: "When I need someone’s information, there’s no limit to the amount of empathy I can develop for that person. I want the scoop and I am only going to get it if I make them feel I am their sincere friend. It’s not moral but it’s a requirement of the job."
"Other than feigning friendship, or at least understanding, with someone I feel to be a complete monster, for example Robert Noel, who owned those dogs that killed Diane Whipple in San Francisco… It was the only way I could get the information. Nonetheless, I knew I was going to turn it around on him.
"But for the most part, I rarely will feign something or smooth talk someone and then turnaround and violate them in what I write.
"The people I don’t trust, the people I believe to be monsters, I tend to stay away from and just take the public record so I can do what I want with it rather than go through the ordeal of forging a fake friendship to get the information."
Luke: "Do the people you interview often feel burned?"
Aphrodite: "No. I don’t do that to people. I won’t do it. I keep so many secrets beyond what I write with everybody I work with. I value that. It’s part of the reason people come back to me with other stories. I am extremely loyal to people who confide to me other than people who are locked behind bars for heinous acts of murder… I have strict values when it comes to that. I don’t cross those lines."
Luke: "I wonder if the reason the media was so anti-Jackson was that there was no up-side to being fair to Jackson. The only up-side was to portray him as a creep. Who’s going to advance his career by saying Michael Jackson is a decent guy who’s been treated indecently?"
Aphrodite: "Right. Had Jackson been put behind bars, it would’ve been a billion dollar industry globally. A cottage industry would’ve developed around what is he eating, what is he not eating, who’s writing, who’s not writing, who’s the jail cellmate, who slipped him something, who didn’t slip him something, is he on suicide watch, which Jackson came to visit… It would’ve been a field day."
Luke: "There’s no news story if you say Michael Jackson behaved in an ordinary way today. That’s not news. It’s only news if he behaves in a freaky way."
Aphrodite: "That’s become the standard for every star, however Jackson was the first and is probably the biggest target. They went after him criminally with shabby evidence and shabby witnesses. They did it because they wanted to shame him out of leaving the county."
Luke: "How responsible is Michael Jackson for his own troubles?"
Aphrodite: "He has to take some responsibility. His Peter Pan thing, people can’t understand it. He’s old enough to seek help, to figure out why he can’t trust adults. He’s so addicted to attention which is why he came up with the arm bands… He’s always able to come up with something. The need for attention is so great perhaps that’s why he perpetuates that whole Neverland thing, the thing with kids, because it had people talking about him."
Luke: "How did the news media at the trial feel about Jackson?"
Aphrodite: "Everybody was talking behind his back… There was a consensus among most people. I did take polls about it. That he was guilty. There was consensus. He was convicted by the media before the trial even started."
Luke: "Did they dislike him?"
Aphrodite: "No. There was a lot of pretending to like him to get him to talk every day after trial."
Luke: "Why was Martin Bashir the only journalist you named in the book?"
Aphrodite: "Because he was the only one who testified against Jackson. He was the one who caused this whole thing to begin with with his fake documentary, a documentary filled with trickery and he’s built a career out of trying to take Jackson down. The promises he made to Jackson prior to the documentary were so outlandish and his behavior in the outtake footage in which he sucks up to Jackson beyond belief and then turns on Jackson… Bashir has been brought up three times for journalistic unfairness in Britain. On one of those occasions he was sanctioned.
"Jackson opened his home, his heart, everything to this man for months… Then Bashir launched a career on ABC News and became a star. That’s the ultimate betrayal and mockery of the whole news system. So now people are getting their news from somebody they think is so trustworthy and he built his career on the opposite of that."
Luke: "But don’t most good journalists do exactly that? Suck up to the subject they need to get close to, befriend the subject, get close, and then betray when they write and report?"
Aphrodite: "Depends on the journalist. Any successful journalist is going to have some sense of bringing their own view to the matter.
"If Playboy or Vogue or People do a story on someone, they don’t suck a person in and attack them. So you can’t say any successful journalist. People magazine is read more than any other magazine in the world."
"Even in the case of 60 Minutes, there’s always an angle they stay true to."
Luke: "What percentage of successful journalists practice journalism in a similar suck-up and betray style to Martin Bashir?"
Aphrodite: "I would say that is not the norm. It might be the impression we get of the media but I’d say that people have more scruples than that. I would hope so."
Luke: "How much do journalists talk about that — seduce and betray?"
Aphrodite: "That’s it. They won’t talk about it. There’s no way to put numbers on that."
Luke: "As journalists, that is the most sensitive part of our jobs. We don’t want to admit to seducing and betraying."
Aphrodite: "When Geraldo went to Neverland and gave a report about Jackson being not guity, didn’t turn around after the verdict… He remained faithful… He said during the trial that if Jackson was found guilty, he’d shave his moustache off.
"To say that all journalists suck up and betray, or that there is an element of that to all journalists, I think that is unfair."
Luke: "You don’t even think there’s an element to it?"
Aphrodite: "There is an element to it. Of course. You’re never dealing with one subject matter. If you want to get the other side of the story, you’re going to have to seduce the other person into thinking, ‘Oh, it’s going to be fine for you.’ You’re going to betray the other person because you have an angle you want to pursue. Yes, everyone is going to do some of that."
I read to Aphrodite the first sentence of Janet Malcolm’s book, The Journalist and the Murderer: "Every journalist who is not too stupid or too full of himself to notice what is going on knows that what he does is morally indefensible."
Aphrodite: "I disagree with that. I’m sorry. I just completely disagree with it. I see myself, right or wrong to the rest of the world, as somebody who wants to shed light on negative situations so they won’t occur again. I don’t find myself to be morally indefensible. I don’t find myself to be someone who has no scruples. I don’t double-cross people I work with. I still maintain friendships with many of the people who’ve been subjects in my books. I mean they’re not close friends but I can call them.
"I do have the experience, as with Joe McGinniss about Jeffrey MacDonald, where along the way you see the other side of the coin… I had that with Michael Jackson. For the most part, I go in seeing the picture… I come into stories after the fact. My investigative reporting has to do with more in-depth work. I’m not looking to find out what happened. People already know what happened. I don’t have to do that kind of guess work. I can be more pointed about how I want to approach a story.
"In my last book about Michael Peterson, who killed his wife, I knew from the get go that this was a monster and I doubted he would be convicted. I did not bother to approach him or his family. I’d rather not go there and play that game knowing I was going to betray the person in the end."
Luke: "What percentage of people do you guestimate end up regretting talking to you?"
Aphrodite: "I don’t know. I’m sure there are plenty but I wouldn’t say it is a large percent. I hear from all of them. People constantly reach out to me."
"There are times when I’ve written things about people and I know I’ve pissed them off. But you don’t realize what the exchange was like in real life. I might have a scene with somebody and walk away thinking, ‘You’ve had your fair shots at me. Wait until you see what happens to you.’ Not in a mean way. I just see the person as a monster. I walk away and I just show the monster."
Luke: "You’ve been interviewed a lot. What percentage of the time do you regret giving someone an interview?"
Aphrodite: "When I do an interview, I always get the tinge of, ‘I’d rather not read it,’ because I know there’s going to be that stab.
"I just did a radio interview with people from Sirus Radio in Santa Barbara. They brought me on so they could sandbag me over the Jackson book. They talked about the top five reasons Jackson’s a pedophile. It was a big joke for them.
"During the course of the interview, I turned it around. By the end of the conversation, not only did I feel it was OK, but their producer came back and thanked me for being such a good sport."
Luke: "Why didn’t you name more names about the media in your book?"
Aphrodite: "It’s something I may do in time… I could name more but some of these people I have personal friendships with. Just because some people misreported things, there’s never a black and white. There’s always a grey."
"I love your questions. They are very insightful."
Luke: "How was the experience of blogging?"
Aphrodite: "For me blogging is a job. A lot of people look at blogging as entertainment or an obsession or it fills a need. It’s a creative outlet. I don’t have that response. I’ve been writing professionally since I was 20. That’s 30 years practically. To me, writing is about work. If I’m not getting paid for it… Blogging is just work that I’m not getting paid for. I enjoy writing but if I know that there’s no pay at the end of that rainbow, I don’t enjoy it as much. The blogging thing has been a mixed bag. It’s been interesting seeing people react to the blogs but I’m not Rosie O’Donnell who has nothing else to do but post her new thoughts of the moment. I have to earn a living."
Luke: "You’re very vulnerable on your blog."
Aphrodite: "I don’t even know that, Luke, because I’m not a blogger."
Luke: "It’s like you’re talking to me on your blog. It’s that same level of candor."
Aphrodite: "For some reason, I’m willing to say more on a blog."
"I’ve always been the last one to join. I didn’t get on the internet until 2000."
