MzWings
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CBS and Jacko
« on: Jan 3rd, 2004, 11:19am » |
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It's not as if there aren't enough problems in MJ's camp - the  media adds more to the mix.
Friday, January 02, 2004
By Roger Friedman
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,107196,00.html
CBS and Jacko: New York Times Reporter's Second Mistake?
It's a great way to start a new year: a fight between two huge media institutions.
The players are CBS News' "60 Minutes" and Ed Bradley vs. the New York Times' Sharon Waxman. I told you Tuesday and Wednesday that there was trouble with Waxman's reporting on the Michael Jackson story.
On Tuesday most of her reporting was stuff she could have found — and most likely did — right in this column. Waxman wrote all about the Nation of Islam's influence over Michael Jackson without even bothering to interview anyone from the NOI. I'm surprised she didn't lift our own interview with NOI chief of staff Leonard Muhammad.
On Wednesday, Waxman added to the excitement by claiming that "60 Minutes" paid Jackson $1 million for his Ed Bradley interview. She used two sources for this scoop: former Jackson manager Dieter Wiesner (unnamed in the article) and US Weekly's Ian Drew.
This column first revealed to the world two weeks ago that Wiesner is the owner of legal sex clubs in Germany. He has also been cut from the Jackson team, which has made him angry and spiteful.
Drew was the reporter from US Weekly who issued the "exclusive" last week that Johnnie Cochran was taking over the Jackson case from attorney Mark Geragos. It was a totally untrue story, one that Cochran personally told me was fiction. 
This is whom Waxman relied on for her reporting.
Interestingly, it was only two weeks ago that Waxman narrowly avoided another huge disaster based on her reporting at the Times.
Just after Roy Disney resigned from the Disney board, Waxman published a story in which she quoted Harvey Weinstein, head of the Disney subsidiary Miramax. The quote looked suspicious.
Waxman reported that Weinstein told her: "All the great executives have been driven from the company. I think there is no camaraderie anymore, no great esprit de corps that I found earlier. I think there was more risk-taking, a more fun company. I don't know why, and it's sad that it is."
In fact, Weinstein did give Waxman that quote, I am told, but three weeks earlier, and in a different context. It was about Disney circa 1994, when Miramax was releasing Quentin Tarantino's "Pulp Fiction."
Waxman had evidently interviewed Weinstein for a book she was writing about Tarantino and just used the quote out of context. I guess it was easier than getting a fresh statement that might have been different.
So throw Waxman's name on the same list as those of disgraced reporters Jayson Blair, Lynette Holloway, Rick Bragg, Bernard Weinraub, Charlie LeDuff and who knows who else at the Times.
Only this time the Times has taken on "60 Minutes" and Don Hewitt, a man who will not want his name tarnished in the final hours of a much praised career.
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