When a particularly insidious article appeared on tabloid website TMZ last week, the emotional reaction among supporters of Michael Jackson was made up of anger, frustration, and general outrage. The story was fabricated from manipulated half-truths, and clearly timed to coincide with the end of preliminary hearings as we await the manslaughter trial of Dr. Conrad Murray.

It’s natural to want to immediately visit the TMZ website to leave a comment on the article—anything to tell managing editor Harvin Levin, his writers, and whoever else may be reading the article the TRUTH behind the lies. We are sensitive when it comes to Michael; we are defensive when we see a tabloid spinning an inconsequential event into something that appears to be a “scandal” worthy of the public’s attention.

Websites like TMZ make money by enticing people to click on their articles and then share the links with their friends. Every time you go back to the website, it’s another click. The more traffic TMZ gets, the more valuable they are to advertisers—who will then in turn pay TMZ more money to place ads on their website.

Michael doesn’t need anyone wasting their time on TMZ defending him. What his legacy and his family and children deserve is for media outlets to stop riding their names and defacing Michael’s name for cheap hits and revenue—regardless of how damaging and inaccurate those stories are. The people leaving hate-filled comments on TMZ aren’t going to care if we show up to defend him or not. Let them waste their time. We have better, more important things to do.

• Don’t click on any links to their website.
• Don’t share any links to their website.
• Don’t comment on any articles on their website.
• If you follow their posts with an RSS reader (like Google Reader), delete the feed.
• If you’ve liked their page on Facebook, unlike it.
• If you follow them on Twitter, unfollow them.

Worried that we won’t know if a similarly damaging article appears on TMZ in the future? Don’t be. We have five individuals assigned to monitor the site for any new posts—three people from MJ fan groups on Facebook, and two on Twitter: @MJNEWSALERTS and @mjsarmy1.

Charles Thomson has written a wonderful article debunking the TMZ post, ensuring that the truth behind the lie is easy for people to find and understand.

You need not ever visit the TMZ website again. Stop letting them use you. Tabloid websites LOVE Michael Jackson fans because we care and we are passionate, so we’re more likely to come back again and again to defend Michael.

If you feel you must contact TMZ to register your voice, please do so offline via private mail or telephone:

8033 Sunset Blvd, Suite 875
Los Angeles, CA 90046
Phone: (818) 972-8000 / Fax: (818) 972-8050

Please note that both Michael Jackson’s Estate and the Guardian ad Litem for his children have already been contacted regarding the story that appeared on TMZ last week. It is not necessary to continue to contact them about this matter.

An update on the non-story TMZ ran about Michael Jackson “improperly anesthetizing” his youngest son, Blanket, for a lengthy dental procedure in 2008:

Journalist Charles Thomson has written a well-researched, non-sensational, and fully rational article debunking the implications raised by TMZ’s “scoop”. Go here to read it.

An excerpt:

Once you strip TMZ’s scoop of its inaccuracy and hyperbole, here’s what you’re left with; in 2008, Michael Jackson took his son to a dentist, who told Jackson that his son required a two-hour-long surgical procedure and would need to be anesthetized. Jackson asked the dentist to hire a licensed anesthesiologist. The dentist complied. The boy was sedated under the correct circumstances and monitored by a professional throughout his surgery. In other words, Jackson behaved like any other parent, allowing his child to undergo necessary medical treatment but first ensuring that it was to be done properly.

By wrongly accusing Jackson of ‘pushing’ and ‘cajoling’ the dentist into conducting a ‘risky medical treatment’, TMZ implies that the dentist’s care was somehow substandard or dangerous. This is untrue. Dr Tadrissi did not stand accused of endangering his patients, giving substandard care or any other form of incompetence. He simply allowed a licensed anesthesiologist to sedate a patient in his clinic without the correct permit.

Go here to read the rest of the article.

Thank you, Mr. Thomson!

Once again, TMZ has fabricated a non-story about Michael Jackson comprised of half-truths and assumptions spun and molded into something completely unrepresentative of reality.

While we think it’s important to know what the actual content of the post is, we don’t want to encourage you to visit the TMZ website (remember, every click you make means increased ad revenue for them!), so we’ve reproduced the article here—including a screen capture:

MJ Pushed Dr. To Improperly Give Son Anesthesia
1/13/2011 1:00 AM PST by TMZ Staff

TMZ has learned … Michael Jackson subjected one of his children to the same risky medical treatment that eventually killed him.

Sources tell TMZ … Michael cajoled a Las Vegas dentist into performing a procedure on Blanket in July, 2008, that involved putting the boy under anesthesia for 2 hours in a dental office that did not have the necessary permit for anesthesia.

TMZ has obtained internal documents from the Nevada Board of Dental Examiners, which detail Michael Jackson’s interactions with Dr. Mark Tadrissi. According to the documents, Tadrissi told Michael he couldn’t perform the procedure on Blanket because he lacked the permit.

According to the Board’s investigator, Michael didn’t want to hear about permits and told the doctor, “Have an anesthesiologist do whatever type of sedation required.”

Tadrissi capitulated and performed the 2 hour procedure on Blanket … who was 6 years old at the time. An anesthesiologist had Blanket sedated the entire time.

Now here’s where it gets mysterious. The Board — which learned of Tadrissi’s actions after Michael died — initiated a disciplinary action against Tadrissi for allowing Blanket to be anesthetized in his office. The Board also went after Dr. Tadrissi for allowing Michael to receive Propofol in his office, without the proper permit.

Dr. Tadrissi struck a deal with the Board in 2010 in which he was sanctioned. In a draft of the report, the Board based the sanctions on his treatment of both Blanket and Michael. But in the final version of the report Blanket was taken completely out — there is no mention of the boy or his treatment.

One source connected with the investigation tells TMZ … pressure was put on the Board to omit Blanket from the report, and when the final version was issued, the discipline was based solely on Michael’s treatment.

What is this article really telling us? Well, let’s look at the crux of the story as if we’re talking about any parent and child, not Michael Jackson and his son…

TRUTH:
• A 6-year-old boy needed a 2-hour dental procedure performed on him that required anesthesia.
• The dentist lacked a permit to perform procedures under anesthesia.
• The boy’s father asked the dentist to hire an anesthesiologist (i.e., a doctor licensed to administer anesthesia) to do the sedation.
• The dentist agreed to hire a licensed anesthesiologist, and who then did the sedation on the 6-year-old boy.

In other words, the father acted like any parent with a young child in need of a lengthy dental procedure. Receiving anesthesia for dental care is NOT unusual, even in young children. It is completely normal to want your child to be anesthetized during a 2-hour long procedure, which—if personal experience with dental work is any indication—is likely to be painful. Furthermore, the use of Propofol in dental surgery is extremely common.

Curious about why anesthesia would be used on a young child visiting this dentist? Take a look at these Frequently Asked Questions About General Anesthesia, as provided by The American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry.

An excerpt:

When a child (or a person of any age with a disability) needs extensive dental treatment, general anesthesia is an accepted standard of care. This standard is supported by the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry, the American Dental Association, the American Medical Association, and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

The reason a complaint was filed against the dentist wasn’t because of anything the father did wrong—it’s because the dentist didn’t have the right permit to allow the licensed anesthesiologist to administer the anesthetic in his office. Think back to the last time you (or your child) received anesthesia at the dentist: Did you check up on all the intricacies of the dentist’s permits regarding the use of an anesthesiologist in his or her office? I’m guessing you didn’t.

SPIN:
What does TMZ want you to take away from their sensationalized report? Well, that’s simple: They want you (and everyone else who reads their article…and everyone who reads every other article based on their article…and so on) to believe that Michael Jackson was such a horrible father and such a delusional junkie that he forced a doctor to put his son to sleep with the very same drug that wound up killing his dad. And if Michael Jackson is that irresponsible and horrible, how can we believe that he didn’t force another doctor to give him an overdose in June 2009? And really, how can we believe that Michael Jackson just didn’t kill himself, since he obviously didn’t care about his kids?

That’s the subtext! That’s what TMZ and the rest of the tabloid media want you to believe. Why? Because it’s “shocking”, it’s scandalous, it involves a very famous person with a lot of public interest, and, above all, because it will get lots of people—including Michael Jackson fans—to click on their site, leave comments, send the link to other people, and ultimately increase TMZ’s value to advertisers.

The media makes a lot of money off of stories about Michael Jackson. It doesn’t matter whether the story is negative or positive, fact or fiction; the public still eats it up. We saw it in 1982, we saw it in 1987, 1993, 2003, 2005, 2009…and on and on and on. As long as the interest is there, the media will provide a story, even if they have to invent it.

We’re in the midst of a period of time between the preliminary hearings and the trial of the doctor accused of involuntary manslaughter in the death of Michael Jackson. It’s a slow time, news-wise. You’re going to see a lot of trash and nonsense and noise coming out so the media can continue filling their pockets while they wait for the trial to start. Be aware.

The best way to take action against tabloid sites like TMZ is with INACTION.

• Don’t click on any links to their website.
• Don’t share any links to their website.
• Don’t comment on any articles on their website.
• If you follow their posts with an RSS reader (like Google Reader), delete the feed.
• If you’ve liked their page on Facebook, unlike it.
• If you follow them on Twitter, unfollow them.

Every click, every link, and every follower makes TMZ a more valuable company in the eyes of advertisers, and that’s where the money lies. Exercise your voice of opposition be refusing to give TMZ a single additional click.