Thursday , March 28 2024

Michael Jackson Trial: One Compressed Nutshell

Every mainstream media story on the Michael Jackson trial (and any other ongoing story, for that matter) has to at least take into account the possibility that the reader hasn’t been following the arc of the greater story (doesn’t know the ins and outs, can’t tell the players without a program), and so the writer (or editor) has to add in a paragraph or three on the basics of the greater story somewhere in every single report.

Naturally, over time these nutshell versions of the story basics become more and more perfunctory and streamlined, leading to this amazing one-sentence AP summary of almost haiku-like compression:

    Jackson, 46, is accused of molesting a 13-year-old boy in 2003, giving him alcohol and conspiring to hold the boy’s family captive to get them to make a video rebutting a TV documentary in which Jackson said he allowed children to sleep in his bed but that it was innocent.

Wow – try reading that out loud without taking a breath. The “but that it was innocent” (my favorite part) fragment doesn’t even warrant a comma: “no time, gotta finish, running out of breath.”

I wonder how Jackson, his accuser and accuser’s family feel about having almost their entire lives over the last two years boiled down to one breathless sentence, but what a sentence it is!

Next up: naming names, or not.

About Eric Olsen

Career media professional and serial entrepreneur Eric Olsen flung himself into the paranormal world in 2012, creating the America's Most Haunted brand and co-authoring the award-winning America's Most Haunted book, published by Berkley/Penguin in Sept, 2014. Olsen is co-host of the nationally syndicated broadcast and Internet radio talk show After Hours AM; his entertaining and informative America's Most Haunted website and social media outlets are must-reads: Twitter@amhaunted, Facebook.com/amhaunted, Pinterest America's Most Haunted. Olsen is also guitarist/singer for popular and wildly eclectic Cleveland cover band The Props.

Check Also

Interview: Thu Vo, Author of ‘Daddy, Am I Beautiful?’

Author Thu Vo recently answered our questions about the new book 'Daddy, Am I Beautiful?', the first book in the Apple Tart book series, where young girl name Annabelle who is teased at school for expressing herself in a princess costume then discusses her emotions with her father. 'Daddy, Am I Beautiful?' is now available on Amazon.com as an eBook for Kindle, Kindle Fire, and Kindle App.