Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, February 14, 1994 TAG: 9402150005
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LYNN ELBER ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: LOS ANGELES LENGTH: Medium
Instead, the film, airing on PBS' ``Frontline'' series (Tuesday at 10 p.m. on WBRA-Channel 15), uses the Jackson case to reveal the workings of tabloid journalism and its dubious impact on mainstream media.
The issue of checkbook journalism - the tabloid practice of paying for news - is key in ``Tabloid Truth,'' says producer Thomas Lennon.
``If the film has a governing idea, it's probably that when every story is bought and sold, what you find is that you're not completely sure of any information,'' Lennon says.
``Tabloid Truth'' starts at the beginning, the frenzied rush last November to uncover details of a police raid on Jackson's Encino home and claims of child sexual abuse.
In January, Jackson's attorneys agreed to an undisclosed, reportedly multimillion-dollar settlement of a civil suit brought by the boy, now 14, who alleged the performer molested him.
Lennon and reporter Richard Ben Cramer were poised to jump on the story-behind-the-story and track reporters from Britain - crucible of tabloid reporting - and from U.S. TV and print outlets.
They were alert, says Lennon, because the documentary had been proposed to PBS before the Jackson case broke. The idea of using a major story to examine the growing influence of tabloid reporting was born out of another high-profile case, the William Kennedy Smith rape trial in 1991.
The advantage that tabloids had because they could pay news sources was a revelation, Lennon says.
``It was one of those `a-ha moments' when you see the world has changed,'' he says. ``The media environment has undergone a sea change.''
Lennon suggested to ``Frontline'' executive producer David Fanning that they wait for the next big media frenzy and jump on it.
``But let's not film what everyone else is filming,'' he told Fanning. ``Let's film the people who are chasing the story.''
The Jackson story broke within days, clearly offering all the elements ``for the full orgy of press coverage to occur: It's celebrity, it's sex, it's children, it's crime, it's everything,'' Lennon says.
The filmmakers documented how tabloid reporters bounded ahead of the traditional press on the story, using paid sources, an existing network of informants and skills honed by years of digging for celebrity dirt.
``We wanted to show the chase at work,'' Lennon says. ``How efficient it is, how rapid it is, how brutally tough it is.
``One thing you can say about money journalism is it gets the information flowing fast ... so within two days, basically, the outline of the facts was out.''
It's in ensuing days when information becomes less trustworthy, Lennon says, as people attracted by the scent of cash offer their stories.
Practitioners of such reporting are unapologetic.
``Anybody who doesn't pay money, it's like cavalry running into machine-gun fire. It's anachronistic,'' Stewart White, a top writer for the British weekly News of the World, says in the film.
The tabloids can pull mainstream news organizations along on their wild ride.
A clip in ``Tabloid Truth'' shows the Jackson story leading an edition of the ``NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw.'' That same night, Lennon says, there were developments concerning U.S. troops deployed in Somalia.
Letting the tabloids set the news agenda is a matter of concern for the mainstream media, says Lennon, who worked for ABC for nearly nine years.
``I ran into lots of friends on this story, people who care a lot about what they do and who were very ambivalent about chasing this story,'' he says.
TV network news operations and major newspapers try to separate themselves from the tabloids, but events overcome good intentions, Lennon says.
``The dynamic of it is basically market-driven and bigger than an individual's set of decisions,'' he says.
by CNB