Michael Jackson and the $50,000 Photos

In 2005, we received a tip that Michael Jackson, known as the King of Pop, was about to be indicted on child molestation charges by the Santa Barbara County District Attorney.

We were told that Jackson was staying at his parents home in Las Vegas and my station, KNBC, sent a camera crew with me to see if we could locate Michael and get an interview with him.

We never did find Michael. We had no chance of locating him.  Our trip to Vegas was a defensive move just in case one of our competitors caught up with him. Our main rival was “Eye Witnesses News” which we dubbed  “I Missed it News.”

The best I could do was locate a rib restaurant where the owner told us that Michael Jackson’s father dropped in and had dinner occasionally.

After several days of coming up empty, and hundreds of dollars in casino losses, we were ready to pack it in. Where was I supposed to look for Michael Jackson? His parents lived behind a large gate with extra security.

 Finally a break! We heard the arraignment was about to happen, so we staked out several airports but never succeeded in catching up with Michael.

Then, on the day he would be arraigned,  we learned that a paparazzi photographer managed to get several exclusive shots of Michael boarding a private charter plane that would take him to Santa Maria for the court hearing. Many media outlets were in Vegas hoping to grab some kind of photo op with Jackson."

The paparazzi photographer who got the shot worked for a service in Los Angeles.

Desperate for ANY picture of Jackson on the day he was being arraigned, my station negotiated with that service in Los Angeles and agreed to pay them $50,000 to purchase the several photos of Jackson taking the charter flight to court. But they insisted that we pay the money directly to the paparazzi photographer himself in Las Vegas.

My station sent me the check,  they put it on the next flight from Burbank, and I gave it to the young paparazzi photographer at the Vegas airport. 

Several hours later, those $50,000 photos were virtually worthless.

Jackson was arraigned later that afternoon and after emerging from the courthouse he smiled, waved and then climbed on to the roof of his black limo and suddenly began dancing on top of it. The waiting media horde was delighted.

The video and photographs of Michael dancing on top of the limo went viral around the world. Everybody had it including our own people and our affiliates.

Needless to say, the photos we’d just paid $50,000 for earlier in the day never got used. It shows you how much a paparazzi can earn even if the images are never published. No wonder these people spend hours waiting around in the street outside clubs, restaurants and garages.

Postscript:

Frankly, I was amazed that our Los Angeles TV station would be willing to spend so much money on those photos of Jackson. Later I asked the news director about it.  He told me, “they were the only photos of Michael that we thought would be available on arraignment day. So we were planning to share the cost with other NBC shows: Nightly News, The Today Show and Access Hollywood.”

"The $50,000 paid for the never-used photos was just an expense of doing business," he explained.

Some time later, I covered the Jackson trial where Michael was charged with molesting a 13 year old cancer survivor. The prosecution presented a case where Jackson was depicted as a predator.

Jackson’s defense team led by Thomas Mesereau, argued that the allegations were fabricated by the accuser's mother in an attempt to extort money from the pop star.

After seven days of deliberations, the jury acquitted Jackson of all charges.

Doug Kriegel - TV News Diary

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