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THINK TWICE: MICHAEL JACKSON, a new podcast

librariangirl:) said:
I just finished listen to the podcast...and I'm sad and disappointed. They start by pretending to be unbiased and there are some interesting parts, but then they let Dimand walk all over it. The worst part is the ending though, by implying that Brando believed MJ was into kids - so shady of them!
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Most of the reactions I've seen agree with the points you make. I know a couple of episodes seem to be OK. The one on Thriller, for example. But most people are unimpressed, angry or frustrated. As soon as I saw Dimond was involved I was very wary.
 
zinniabooklover said:
Most of the reactions I've seen agree with the points you make. I know a couple of episodes seem to be OK. The one on Thriller, for example. But most people are unimpressed, angry or frustrated. As soon as I saw Dimond was involved I was very wary.
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I think that besides her, one of the people we instinctively feel that way about is Maureen Orth, given all the vile slander she wrote about Michael in the pages of Vanity Fair. Such as her appalling 1995 report called "The Jackson Jive," attacking the Diane Sawyer interview of Michael and Lisa Marie...claiming that Sawyer was too easy on them. That it was just a "PR softball."

It's notable how Orth used to seem like a good writer, and apparently still had had things to offer such as her book about the Gianni Versace assassination that was the basis for the ACS season. But with Michael, she was just absolutely unhinged, in fact even in her "good" works, a bit of the mask slips. Including even her well-known interview/cover story on Tina Turner in 1993, implying that Tina went on tour in 1993 because she was spending excessively. It's a very blink-and-you'll-miss-it thing in that story, which is so good, especially as it's mostly Tina speaking, but it's there.

I still am gobsmacked at the fact that she is the widow of Tim Russsert, someone absolutely the opposite of Orth in terms of reporting. But then again, James Carville and Mary Matalin are married.
 
Toxic34 said:
I think that besides her, one of the people we instinctively feel that way about is Maureen Orth, given all the vile slander she wrote about Michael in the pages of Vanity Fair. Such as her appalling 1995 report called "The Jackson Jive," attacking the Diane Sawyer interview of Michael and Lisa Marie...claiming that Sawyer was too easy on them. That it was just a "PR softball."
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oh god, Maureen Orth. I can't even ... :mad:

Toxic34 said:
It's notable how Orth used to seem like a good writer, and apparently still had had things to offer such as her book about the Gianni Versace assassination that was the basis for the ACS season. But with Michael, she was just absolutely unhinged, in fact even in her "good" works, a bit of the mask slips. Including even her well-known interview/cover story on Tina Turner in 1993, implying that Tina went on tour in 1993 because she was spending excessively. It's a very blink-and-you'll-miss-it thing in that story, which is so good, especially as it's mostly Tina speaking, but it's there.
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Orth is a decent journalist but not particularly gifted, imo. It's interesting you mention the Tina Turner piece bc I'm lukewarm about it. The piece is OK but overall it doesn't feel very 'pulled together' to me. It feels somewhat unfinished in spite of it being so long and so detailed. Then there is that bit you mention. I don't wanna get into it but, yeah, that part is massively problematic, imo.

That said, she did get the best Tina quote:

"You asked me if I ever stood up for anything. Yeah, I stood up for my life."
 
zinniabooklover said:
oh god, Maureen Orth. I can't even ... :mad:


Orth is a decent journalist but not particularly gifted, imo. It's interesting you mention the Tina Turner piece bc I'm lukewarm about it. The piece is OK but overall it doesn't feel very 'pulled together' to me. It feels somewhat unfinished in spite of it being so long and so detailed. Then there is that bit you mention. I don't wanna get into it but, yeah, that part is massively problematic, imo.

That said, she did get the best Tina quote:

"You asked me if I ever stood up for anything. Yeah, I stood up for my life."
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For those who don't know what happened, here's the notable "Yikes" passage in Orth's VF profile of Tina:

Tina Turner likes to spend money – oodles of it. She doesn’t look at the price tags. She often buys duplicates of her designer clothes in case the cleaners wreck something. She collects antique furniture, owns a house in Germany and is renovating another in the South of France, drinks Cristal champagne, drives a Mercedes jeep, and indulges herself with massages, facials, psychic readings, and holistic cures. She’s sold 30 million records since 1984, when “What’s Love Got to Do With It?” soared to No. 1 on the pop charts and her Private Dancer album spawned three additional hit singles and swept the Grammys. Although she hasn’t had a hit record in seven years, on her last European tour, in 1990, she filled stadiums and played to 3.5 million people, outdrawing both Madonna and the Rolling Stones. So she’s hardly hurting.

But not long ago her accountant called her and told her, “You’ve been having a good time.” If she wanted to keep the perfumed bubble bath filled to overflowing, it was time to turn on the faucet again — go out and strut her stuff for millions of dollars while the movie was playing and the sound track was being released. Not that she feels particularly like singing onstage – doing that every night with her extraordinary, God-given talent is all wrapped up in her mind with hideous memories of beating and indentured servitude. She’s rather act. “I think it’s more classy to be an actress than to be a rock singer. But you don’t make as much money. I ain’t no dummy. I know that.”
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First off, "no hit record in seven years?" That's profoundly untrue. Now, Orth is probably referring to Tina's post-Private Dancer works doing better in Europe than in North America, but that's not surprising. Tina always said that Europe supported her more, openly admitted as such. But Tina's works and singles were still hitting the American charts in some fashion. The last full on hit in America she'd ever have was "I Don't Wanna Fight," on the soundtrack for What's Love Got to Do With It?, but again, the Wildest Dreams and Twenty-Four Seven albums did big numbers in Europe, as did the singles.

Orth basically suggests that Tina was overspending and on the verge of experiencing an M.C. Hammer-like fate, and only went on tour in 1993 to stay afloat. Orth ludicrously overstates Tina's desire to act and the trauma associated with Ike to say that Tina felt like an indentured servant onstage. That simply doesn't jibe at all. Not to mention that Tina had experienced having to start from the ground up again in between leaving Ike and releasing Private Dancer, so she knew how to be frugal and certainly wasn't going to blow everything she'd earned.

Even in her best works, Orth has a tendency to take really notable potshots and subtle and not-so-subtle insults to certain figures. While Michael was the one who got the worst of it, Orth often wrote quite disparagingly of Bill and Hillary Clinton, especially in her June 2001 article about the infamous Marc Rich pardon (and a connection to Michael, given that Michael accompanied Denise Rich, replacing Paul McCartney, to the fundraiser where she gifted President Clinton the saxophone. She also takes the moment to remind the readers that "Jackson's career never recovered" after the Chandler allegations).

Also of note, Orth is the widow of Tim Russert, the late host of NBC's Meet the Press. This is as much of a polar opposite for the catty Orth as you can imagine. But again, James Carville and Mary Matalin are married and they've made it work somehow.
 
I just had an ad for this shit in my Instagram stories. The real shitty thing was that the ad kept buffering/freezing after like three seconds of playing, and it was just a vague, static image with a tagline ("King of Pop or Monster?"); no logo/title to fully confirm what it was. I let curiosity get the best of me and went to the link and sure enough, got an Amazon Music page with the podcast. I immediately backed out and told Instagram to hide the ad. I hate that I had to give that page a click just to confirm it because Instagram oh-so-conveniently decided to not fucking play the whole thing so I could confirm it was for trash.

Guess what I'm trying to say is watch your social media algorithms. Hate to sound crazy but I can't help but feel like they're trying to infiltrate.
 
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