Hee Hee Hee!

Shamon! OOOOH!

(Stands on toes... grabs sleeve and pulls it to elbow)

Oh... sorry.

Ahem...

We are at VIII in this series! Hard to believe, but yeah, I guess there is that much to talk about.

Keep the dialogue going... it's been great.

Photos are fine, I love seeing what you guys have posted... just try to stray from reposting them... slows things down.

Thanks, and... keep !!!

- June7

first

Matt Drudge of www.drudgereport.com on why he's sick of the majority of the media's portrayal of the case, how some jury members appear to be on the verge of saying out loud "why are we here?" and other interesting thoughts and observations.

http://www.volcanicsoft.c...005_b2.mp3

http://www.volcanicsoft.c...005_c2.mp3

worth a listen, i think.

brief summary:

What Roger Freidman said:

Roger said that he is sick of hearing "where there is smoke, there is fire" because in this case, that is false. It's not impossible given the dubious nature of the majority of the 1108 witnesses, that they just could all be lying.

Roger said that what is being reported in the media, is way different from what is being said in court.

He said it appears some jury members are not buying this crap either.

T-Mez has not contacted Baressi yet, although Baressi has contacted both the defense and the DA to give them tapes about these 1108 witnesses, where they all made up tabloid tales about MJ for cash.

The cook is the same guy who infiltrated into the Ranch during the Elizabeth Taylor/Larry Fortensky marriage, in order to get information for the National Enquirer who sent him.

What Matt Drudge Said:

There is very good case for reasonable doubt.

Matt Drudge is sick and tired of these gang of women anchors who have convicted MJ in the media. Nancy grace, Diane Dimond etc. He said that at this point the nails have gone into both of MJ's hands.

He said that the cross examination is not getting any media attention, and when these cable news shows talk about the case, they are talking only about the Direct only and proclaiming MJ's guilt and not giving any airtime to the Cross.


[Edited 4/12/05 19:31pm]

Marrk said:

damnit!

sloppy thirds

I'd sooooo do them both. Pepina sandwich!

wow, Mike´s charm´s starting to work on more ppl than me.

more pix I love to see him head to toe.

Pepina said:

Well Okay.

I'm not all up on my Jacksons -which one of Michael's brothers is this?

*lol* Jackie (damn - I think - or Jermaine *lol* - no I think it´s Jackie - the oldest one)

dag said:

???






Money makes the world go round at Jackson trial
16:00 AEST Wed Apr 13 2005


SANTA MARIA, California (AFP) - From its main actors to its bit players to its overarching themes, a central motif runs through Michael Jackson's child molestation trial — and it isn't sex.

"Money in this case is huge. It's money, money, and more money," lawyer Anne Bremner, who has been following the trial, said Tuesday. "It seems like everyone has their hand out."

Jackson is on trial for allegedly fondling a 13-year-old boy two years ago, plying him with alcohol and holding him and his family against their will, a charge which the prosecution links to his failing fortunes.

The pop icon's handlers were so worried, the argument goes, they panicked after a television documentary showed him holding his future accuser's hand and admitting that children often share his bed.

As his longtime publicist said in court this week: "Perception is 90 percent of what the public thinks."

So Jackson aides moved to sequester the family to force them to make a rebuttal video, aiming to prevent further erosion of the pop star's empire.

The defense meanwhile maintains that the allegations by the accuser's family are driven by the mother's rapacious greed.

She has a history of using her children to bilk celebrities, lead defense lawyer Thomas Mesereau argued in opening arguments six weeks ago. Past targets include Hollywood superstar Jim Carrey, boxer Mike Tyson and US comedian Adam Sandler, he said.

When those alleged ruses failed, she turned her rapacious sights on Jackson.

"The mother, with her children as tools, was trying to find a celebrity to latch onto," Mesereau said. "Unfortunately for Michael Jackson, he fell for it."

The prosecution has taken its time calling the mother to the witness stand and is now, late in its case, apparently weighing whether to bring her out at all.

Jurors might believe she coached her kids to lie in this case, if the defense dredges up too many questionable details from her past, Bremner argued.

"If she's on the stand and is eviscerated by Mesereau ... what happens to the case? Because she is the one who drives the children," she said.

Prosecutors rolled out her new husband Tuesday, a seemingly "straight and narrow" military man, in a bid to improve her image prior to her highly anticipated testimony, Bremner said.

But his squeaky clean image was sullied when he admitted speaking several times with a British tabloid that was offering US$15,000 ($19,340) for the family's story.

And then there's the domestic help at Jackson's Neverland Ranch, a gated fantasy world he spends millions to maintain each year.

Adrian McManus, Jackson's former personal maid, denied she plotted with other employees on how to reap riches from her insider access, but later admitted in court she collected US$32,000 ($41,258) from tabloids and other media.

She could not deny that she had a contract with a gossip magazine to rat on Jackson's relationship with his former wife Lisa Marie Presley, or that she was quoted in an article in Star magazine titled "Kinky Sex Secrets of Michael and Lisa Marie's Bedroom: Five of his Closest Servants Tell All."

Another maid admitted in court to being paid US$20,000 ($25,787) dollars for an interview with the Hard Copy television program.

Jackson, in addition to doling out millions to two alleged abuse victims, has been sued by ex-employees for overtime pay and wrongful dismissal.

And everyone, from his former long-time publicist to the man who supervised his maids, has a book in the works.

Dwayne Swingler blabbed to News of the World after working as Jackson's house manager for just five weeks and jotted down some notes tentatively titled "Entering Neverland: Secrets behind the Gate," according to Jackson's defense.

"I was interested in maybe writing down some information to cash in like everybody else was doing," Swingler said.

"Everybody wants money from Michael Jackson. Everyone wants money from the press or tabloids," said Bremner. "No one is immune from the money angle of this case."
[Edited 4/13/05 3:42am]

Seeking Truth in the [Jackson] Case
Tuesday, April 12, 2005
By Roger Friedman

U.S. Army Maj. Jay D. Jackson may not have told the complete truth Tuesday on the witness stand in the Michael Jackson (search) child molestation case. The question is: Will it be considered just a white lie, or something worse?

Jay Jackson, the husband of Janet Arvizo, mother of Michael Jackson's accuser, said under oath that he did not sell a story to a pair of British tabloid reporters in February 2003. Questioned by prosecutor Ron Zonen (search), Jay Jackson conceded that when the reporters, David Gardner of The Daily Mail and Alec Byrne, came to him, he immediately asked them for compensation. But he indicated in his testimony that after a couple days of negotiations — and an offer from the Mail for $15,000 —he turned them down.

Jay Jackson repeatedly denied on the stand that he ever took money for a story about Michael Jackson.

In fact, Jay Jackson and Janet Arvizo did sell a story to Gardner and Byrne to appear in the Daily Mail. The story was published on Saturday, Feb. 9, 2003, in the Mail and then ran in Australia (search) the next day with quotes from the accuser's mother and her friend, Jamie Masada. I told you about this article — which was never published in the United States.

But no money ever changed hands, and the Mail got it for free. I am told by sources that Gardner and Byrne conducted part of the interview, took pictures of the accuser's parents and received pictures from them. But when they testify in the defense portion of the Michael Jackson trial, the two journalists will have an interesting story to tell that will also account for a missing piece of the puzzle in this bizarre tale.

According to my sources, Gardner and Byrne finished a portion of the interview and were set to return the next day. This would have been on Feb. 4, 2003, right after the accuser's parents became infamous from the British broadcast of the Martin Bashir interview, "Living with Michael Jackson."

But when Gardner and Byrne returned on Feb. 5, they were surprised to find the accuser's family completely gone from their apartment. Ironically, they had negotiated an even higher number than $15,000 with both Jay Jackson and Janet Arvizo. But they’d vanished overnight.

The reporters, I am told, surmised that Jay Jackson — realizing the story of merely knowing Michael Jackson (there was no molestation allegation at the time) was worth at least $15,000 to The Daily Mail, knew it must have been worth even more to … Michael Jackson. The thinking is that Jay Jackson and Janet Arvizo called Neverland and told someone there what was going on. The result was the family’s quick whisking away to Miami.

The scenario makes sense and fills in a missing piece of the puzzle. It’s never been completely clear why Michael Jackson — who was in Miami when this was taking place — wanted to bring the family there overnight. An excuse was given, and has been commonly accepted, that the family was brought to Miami to participate in a press conference. But no such event ever materialized, and the family returned with Michael Jackson by private plane to Neverland within 48 hours.

Now it seems that the Miami trip was triggered by a call from Jay Jackson and the accuser's mother. “How else would Michael have known they were in ‘danger’ from the media?” asks a source. Good point.

It was only after Michael Jackson’s managers, Dieter Wiesner and Ronald Konitzer, realized that the accuser and his family were vulnerable to tabloid reporters that they no doubt organized a plan to isolate them for a period and keep them entertained. That plan, which was bungled, mushroomed into what is now called The Conspiracy.

Gardner’s story, by the way, is key to the defense case for Michael Jackson because the interview occurred right before all hell broke loose. In the story, Janet Arvizo — with no prompting from anyone — said: "Michael has brought something special into our lives. All of my kids have stayed over with Michael. I am comfortable with that. …They are happy with him and have a lot of fun. They are hoping to travel the world with him. He is their angel."

Masada, a family friend, told Gardner about possible inappropriate behavior: "[The accuser] is not a naive kid. He would have said if something bad had happened."

Meanwhile, Jay Jackson will have some problems on the stand in his continuing cross examination by defense attorney Thomas Mesereau on Wednesday. His truthfulness about the Daily Mail reporters hinges on his claim that he didn’t take money. But he testified very clearly that he never told the accuser's mother about the offers or the amounts involved. That, I am told, is simply untrue. Janet Arvizo, who sounded very articulate and composed on a tape recording played in court Tuesday, is said to have participated in the negotiations with Gardner and Byrne.

As an addendum to this, there is also the matter of Jay Jackson’s evident astonishment Tuesday as Mesereau played a 20-minute tape in court made by private investigator Brad Miller of Janet Arvizo and her three children. On the tape, the family members wax poetic about Michael Jackson being their savior and father figure. At the time, they were living in Jay Jackson’s home, and he considered himself their surrogate dad. No mention is made by any of the family members of Jay Jackson — as if he didn’t exist.

While the tape played, Jay Jackson rocked back and forth in the witness chair, drank a pitcher of water and wiped sweat from his brow. It was a stroke of brilliance on the part of Mesereau to subject the witness to this evident humiliation. The tape made him seem like a sucker in a con game, and all the worse since he later married Janet Arvizo and has a baby with her now.

Source: http://www.foxnews.com/st...67,00.html

meow85 said:

It's Jackie. Sweet, sweet chocolate adonis Jackie. *sigh*

Drama in Jackson trial as accuser's mother takes the stand and the Fifth

SANTA MARIA, United States (AFP)

US pop star Michael Jackson arrives at Santa Barbara County Superior Court in Santa Maria, California for another day of testimony in his child molestation trial
(AFP)

The mother of Michael Jackson's child sex accuser took the stand in his trial, but then in a dramatic move refused to testify over aspects of her shady past.

The woman, who Jackson's lawyers have described as a money-seeking opportunist out to extort celebrities, took the Fifth Amendment of the US Constitution, refusing to talk about claims that she engaged in welfare fraud.

The US Constitution allows witnesses to invoke the Fifth Amendment to avoid incriminating themselves during testimony.

But Jackson's legal team asked Judge Rodney Melville to prevent the woman -- who took the Fifth out of the jury's earshot -- from testifying altogether, but the judge denied that request, as well as another to declare a mistrial.

"You cannot allow a witness what he is going to be examined on," Jackson lawyer Robert Sanger argued after the judge dismissed the jurors who could jail Jackson for up to 20 years.

"Michael Jackson, who has been accused by this witness, has a right under counsel to vigorously cross examine this witness to show that she has committed acts of perjury and acts of fraud and that she is not credible," he said.

The woman is one of the most critical prosecution witnesses in the molestation case against the embattled "King of Pop," but Jackson's team has promised to discredit her as a woman who lies under oath and a con artist.

"The remedy at this point is to not allow this witness to testify at all," he said.

But prosecutors argued that the defense could raise the issues they would have raised with the woman with other witnesses.

The judge ruled that the woman can testify, but that jurors will be informed that she has taken the Fifth over accusations of possible welfare fraud when she allegedly accepted state benefit payouts that she was not entitled to.

"It's a moment of betrayal," legal analyst Jim Moret said of the woman's decision to limit her testimony.

The singer's lawyers say the woman, whose now 15-year-old son Jackson is accused of molesting two years ago, is a liar and a scam artist who used her children to get money out of celebrities.

In his opening arguments Prosecutor Tom Sneddon, who called the woman to testify about an alleged plot by Jackson and his aides to kidnap her and her family and hold them captive, would admit she accepted welfare payments to which she was not entitled.

http://www.turkishpress.c...he%20Fifth


[Edited 4/13/05 11:55am]

CNN: Reporter said that Janet was being "very sensitive" on the stand even though this was under Direct. And that it appeared that she was "acting". Then the reporter chimed in... "And not very well, in my opinion..."

Said Mez was sitting and waiting for his turn to question her. And he was ready to tear her apart...

Marrk said:

Wait a minute....are you saying that Jordie's mom is already off the stand? Did she ever testify that MJ molested her son? I watched that silly courtroom re-enactment on E channel last night. She never said anything about MJ molesting. She just talked about MJ sleeping in the bed with her son, which he has admitted to.

illimack said:

Gavin's mum is on the stand, i think the reporter was observing Mesereau's body language. Court TV's Diane Dimond apparently think she'll be on the longest of all the prosecution witnesses (but then she's saying she's doing well and is calm ), she testfied the longest at Grand Jury, mainly because she was confused all the time and didn't understand 'long words'.

I suspect Sneddon will try to rush her off by asking her as little as possible and not going into certain things, thus limiting what can be asked under cross examination.
[Edited 4/13/05 12:32pm]

T-mez is going to eat her ass up. I can't wait. I hope they report what really happens. I can't stand that bitch Diane Diamond, trying to make a career out of Michaels misery. What did he ever do to her anyway.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7490739/

Is Jackson accuser's mom credible?

Live Vote
If the mother of Michael Jackson's accuser make a credible witness?

* 3925 responses


Yes, she can credibly describe what happened to herself and her son
21%

No, there are too many questions about her legal tangles
79%

Michael's vitiligo is showing up today.

illimack said:

...
He tried to sue her MANY
MANY MANY MANY MANY TIMES

CNN Headline News Reports:

- Mother has testified to this point that she felt she was being kept against her will at Neverland

- Eventually communicated in Spanish to a Neverland employee to 'smuggle' them out of Neverland when people were asleep

- Some of her testimony has contradicted earlier testimony that the jury has heard from seemingly credible witnesses

- Has been very emotional and hyper-sensitive at times

- At one point she turned to the jury and seemingly cried, she told the jury not to judge her and went on with a long monologue

- Kept going on-and-on with ALL of her answers to the point where prosecutors have had to stop her

- Mesereau only objected ONCE to tell the prosecutor that she hasn't finished her answer

- Mesereau is letting her go on as much as possible, thinking she will ruin her own testimony

- Judge gave notice the jury about the mother pleading the fifth
[Edited 4/13/05 13:42pm]

Marrk said:

Hey good news... Maybe Mike wants to turn black again ???
[Edited 4/13/05 15:19pm]

That's probably hyper-pigmentation due to Lupus.

Pepina said:

you could be right Pepina. i don't know.

Janet is proving she's today.

Can't wait for the cross tomorrow!

Jackson Accuser's Mom: 'Don't Judge Me!'

3 minutes ago Entertainment - AP Gossip/Celebrity


By LINDA DEUTSCH, AP Special Correspondent

SANTA MARIA, Calif. - Holding her arms out to the jury, the mother of Michael Jackson's teenage accuser sobbed and pleaded, "Please don't judge me!" as she recounted her family's involvement with the pop star in dramatic testimony Wednesday.

The woman's turn on the witness stand came after Judge Rodney S. Melville allowed her to testify despite her refusal to discuss alleged welfare fraud — an issue on which the defense had hoped to attack her credibility. She invoked the Fifth Amendment in fending off that line of questioning.

Looking directly at the jury during a convoluted and sometimes tearful account, the woman once punctuated her words by snapping her fingers and later affected the German accent of a Jackson associate. She addressed news reporters directly at one point, and at other times glanced at Jackson, who sat motionless at the defense table.

Jackson, 46, is accused of molesting a 13-year-old former cancer patient, plying the boy with alcohol, and holding his family captive in February and March 2003 to get them to help rebut a damaging documentary.

The accuser's mother said Jackson had convinced her that her children were in danger, that there were "killers" after them, and that he was the only one who could protect them.

"I thought, 'What a nice guy,'" she said. "I was just like a sponge, believing him, trusting him." She recounted what she sarcastically called Jackson's "lovey dovey speech" at a Florida hotel room, in which Jackson told the family "in a very male voice" that he would be their father figure and protector.

She said Jackson told the family "that he loves us, that he cares about us, we're family. ... That we were in the back of the line, now we're in the front of the line, that he's going to protect us from those killers."

Later she added: "And you know what? They ended up being the killers."

Asked by Senior Deputy District Attorney Ron Zonen about her memory of the events, she pointed to her head and exclaimed: "Some things are just burned in here."

She then offered an account, in conflict with testimony of other witnesses, in which she described seeing Jackson lick her son's head during a February 2003 flight from Miami to California on a private jet.

"Everyone was asleep. I had not slept for so long," she said. "I got up. I figured this was my chance to figure out what was going on back there. And that's when I saw Michael licking (the boy's) head."

She sobbed, pounded her chest and said, "I thought I was seeing things. I thought it was me."

During the first few hours of the woman's testimony, defense attorneys did not make a single objection.

Earlier, the woman described how she had lived from 1998 to 2003 in a small bachelor-style apartment with only one main room. She said her son and husband sometimes stayed at her mother's house because the boy had a special sterile room there.

Defense attorneys contend the family kept the bachelor apartment to make celebrities believe they were poor, but actually spent much of their time at the home of the boy's grandmother.

They also have raised questions about the woman's credibility by accusing her of bilking celebrities and committing welfare fraud. District Attorney Thomas Sneddon said in opening statements the woman would admit she took welfare payments to which she wasn't entitled.

But in taking the stand outside the presence of jurors earlier in the day, the woman took the Fifth, and refused to discuss "everything to do with the welfare application."

Melville allowed her to testify, despite vehement arguments from defense attorney Robert Sanger. The judge rejected a request for a mistrial, saying the defense could raise questions about the woman's credibility through other testimony.

AP Writer Tim Molloy contributed to this report.


http://dailynews.yahoo.co...d=84439559
[Edited 4/13/05 16:03pm]

24th!

If Michael is guilty, he will get off due to sloppy prosecution.

And if he did truly molest anyone, why aren't all these witnesses going to jail?

What kind of fucked up human being do you have to be to let someone's life get ruined?

What have these people had to say for themselves?

krayzie said:

I have news for her! The jury IS there to judge you and your testimony!!
I think the judge needs to have a sidebar with this woman or somethin'. She is off her rocker!

dreamfactory313 said:

good one....

my first actual contribution to these horrid threads....(then back to watching stone phillips and his awesome davinci thingie)


Jackson case just too much of a trial?
The taboo nature of the allegations against the pop superstar may have helped mute public interest in the details.






By Robin Abcarian, Times Staff Writer


Bill Bastone, co-founder and editor of the Smoking Gun, a website that posts legal documents, is perplexed about readers' reaction to his Michael Jackson child-molestation trial coverage. In February, the site obtained and published sealed grand jury testimony in the case, scooping the national media as it has done in a number of celebrity cases over the last several years. But the Smoking Gun's readers, said Bastone, were unmoved.

"Any kind of feedback that we've gotten has been pretty negative," he said. "People never write to say, 'That was interesting, glad you got your hands on grand jury testimony.' It's 'Why are you writing about this case?' Our audience is tired of Michael Jackson."

As the trial in Santa Maria has become more graphic — particularly in the last week, when a former security guard testified in detail about a sexual act he claimed to have seen Jackson perform on a naked 10-year-old boy more than a decade ago — what some have called the story's "ick factor" has lowered the appetite of listeners, viewers and readers nationwide.

The notion that the Jackson case has become too salacious to maintain spirited interest is echoed in interviews with television journalists, talk radio hosts and programmers, and editors of celebrity-driven weekly magazines. This is not to say that there is demonstrably less trial coverage — there is still a large contingent of domestic and international media present at the courthouse — only that the appetite for the particulars seems to be somewhat muted.

"A lot of the celebrity media is based on this voyeuristic paradigm — who is Brad Pitt with and so on," said Ken Baker, West Coast executive editor of Us Weekly magazine. "But there's a line that is drawn, and that line is that people don't want to know what Michael Jackson did in that bedroom.

"Even the dark, nasty tabloids are not going there," said Baker. "It's getting to be a very sad story, a sad story with no villain that you can love to hate … like Scott Peterson. With Michael, you just don't want to hear about the next kid he took a shower with."

Bastone agreed: "People will watch and talk about the Scott Peterson trial, where a guy will get convicted of killing his unborn baby and wife, but you can't talk about this, it's a taboo subject."

Jonathan Klein, president of CNN/U.S., said that although odd moments in the trial — such as Jackson's arrival to the court in pajamas — have drawn a spike in viewer interest, he has scaled back coverage, especially during prime time, because he does not believe the audience is transfixed by it.

"There's not the daily obsession, partly I think because it's an uncomfortable subject matter and partly because there are no cameras in the courtroom," he said, adding that the case has not offered the escapism of other celebrity trials. "It's tawdry. It just gets a little too close to the bone and strips away all the celebrity and sensationalism and turns it into something grotesque."

At People magazine, which devoted five covers to the Peterson murder trial, deputy managing editor Larry Hackett said his staff has struggled to find a way to cover the Jackson trial. "We did one [Michael Jackson] cover, right after he was charged," said Hackett, "and it did not perform well." That, he said, "told us that the public has either tuned this one out … or we thought perhaps people are tired of the rumors since they have heard about them for 12 years; it's all the same static you've been hearing for a long time."

Rather than recap trial coverage, for instance, in its April 18 issue People devoted part of its "Jackson Trial" page to a comparison of the singer's accusers, featuring photographs of the alleged victims, with obscured faces.

"This magazine comes into people's homes and sits on their coffee tables," said Hackett. "I have two small children — 6 and 8 — and I turn the radio off when this story comes on."

Us Weekly has decided not to cover the testimony, said Baker, and instead has reported news related to Jackson's business dealings —such as an item that Jackson was talking to a developer about turning his Santa Ynez Valley ranch, Neverland, into a resort, or that he might consider performing as a headliner in a new Donald Trump casino in Las Vegas.

Not all news outlets have experienced Jackson trial fatigue. Court TV, which is devoting significant time to covering the Jackson trial, has experienced a spike in viewership of 150% over the same period last year, which the cable network's executive vice president of daytime programming, Marlene Dann, attributes largely to interest in the Jackson case.

But even that does not rival the public fascination with the Scott Peterson trial, said Dann, when Court TV got a record number of viewers. "In the Peterson trial, the people involved could be your next-door neighbors," she said. "With Jackson, while people are interested because he's such a high-profile celebrity, he is unique. People can't relate to him in the same way."

The case continues to be a staple on local talk radio, which has never met a celebrity trial it could not embrace. "We love them. We can't get enough of them," said John Kobylt, co-host of KFI-AM's afternoon "John & Ken Show." "If I could have one celebrity do one bad thing a year, every year, I could retire very comfortably…. We're looking for theater, we're looking for drama, we're looking for a lot of emotion. If something like this happens, we're absolutely going to milk it to the bone."

Still, said Kobylt, even his listeners are somewhat put off by the case. "I think people get more intense about murder cases. Pedophilia, less so. Obviously, victims aren't killed, they're damaged."

Robin Bertolucci, program director of KFI (640), said that her station's local hosts have devoted much air time to the trial, and KFI reporter Laura Ingle has lived in Santa Maria since the trial began, giving lengthy reports on the goings-on in and outside the courtroom, even keeping an online diary.

But Bill Handel, whose weekday show on KFI attracts high ratings, said his listeners haven't found the Jackson trial as compelling as previous high-profile cases. "It's a big story … but people are not as invested in this as they were with Peterson. People related with [Peterson's slain wife] Laci more."

Bernard Pendergrass, assistant program director at KABC-AM (790), said the trial continues to be a staple among the talk station's hosts. "You have a larger-than-life star, Michael Jackson, No. 1. You're dealing with an icon who is now accused of molesting children. Not only that, the bizarre details you hear about almost every other day have us glued. It's almost irresistible."

KABC host Al Rantel said he focuses on the trial at least once a week, but "the public has been sort of inoculated for the Jackson trial." The topic matter "sort of yucks a lot of people out."

Indeed, CNN's Klein said he is becoming known among his staff for railing against coverage of the trial during the network's morning editorial meetings.

"It's been a project to wean our producers from a sense they must cover every twitch of the story in prime time," he said. "The television news business has become so debased in the past couple of decades that producers who ought to know better find themselves covering stories they don't like at all and don't stop to ask, 'If I don't like it, what makes me think the viewers would like it?' I'm trying to get them to ask that question."


-----
Times staff writer Matea Gold and freelance writer Steve Carney contributed to this report.