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'Be Careful Who You Love: Inside the Michael Jackson Case' by Diane
Dimond
Reporter offers refreshed take on Jackson's
sex-abuse case
Sunday, December 11, 2005
By LaMont Jones, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Volumes have been written about legendary entertainer Michael Jackson and the child-molestation
accusations that have swirled around him for more than a decade.
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"BE CAREFUL
WHO YOU LOVE: INSIDE THE MICHAEL JACKSON CASE"
By Diane Dimond
Atria ($25) |
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Now Dimond serves up her version, a gripping page-turner that dissects the multiple allegations
of child sex-abuse leveled at Jackson, who, since the first case in 1993, has gone from superstar to falling star.
Dimond, who credits herself with breaking the first story in 1993 while working for the syndicated
TV program "Hard Copy," takes readers on the scene and behind the scenes from that case through Jackson's second abuse scandal, a trial that ended in his acquittal in June.
She serves heaping helpings of compelling information, some of it quite graphic, that never
made it through mass media filters and into the domain of a public that tends to privilege sound bites and briefs over detail
and nuance.
True objectivity is impossible, especially for a journalist who has covered a story so painstakingly
for so long. But Dimond bends over backward to be even-handed, perhaps to ease those who night be skeptical because of her
tenure with Fox News. But her other credentials are sufficient to outweigh that suspicion: anchoring news and covering the
2000 presidential election at MSNBC; co-hosting a nightly news program on CNBC; working stints as an on-air correspondent,
investigative unit anchor and chief executive investigative editor for Court TV; and receiving a citation from Time magazine
for her continuing coverage of the Jackson case as among "The Best TV of '93."
Dimond tracks the story through mid-2005, describing, for example, the devastated lives of
the accusers' families, former Jackson employees and other
ordinary people who got caught up in the controversy.
She also reveals that when Jackson's camp contacted organizers
of the Live 8 African relief charity concerts about the singer possibly performing, they turned him down, another sign that
Jackson's reputation may be irreparably tarnished.
Facts are one thing; truth is another. And Dimond's account has a certain ring of truth. She
marshals an army of relevant facts -- personal interviews with witnesses, corroborating court transcripts, sworn affidavits,
confidential child welfare records supplied by secret sources -- to paint perhaps the most thorough picture to date of what
happened in the Jackson cases, how, and why.
Jackson's supporters will
have a difficult time writing off Dimond's book as a get-Michael literary vendetta.
The author scrutinizes not just Jackson and his team, but also his accusers and their families,
law-enforcement practices, jury dynamics and the historic difficulties of proving child sex-abuse allegations.
Dimond never says whether she believes Jackson
is guilty of molesting his accusers or if she thinks he's a pedophile. But by the end of her book, it's difficult to conclude
that he is neither.
(Post-Gazette staff writer LaMont Jones can
be reached at 412-263-1469 or ljones@post-gazette.com.) |