December 16th 2003. Wow! We got scooped big time by Jeannette Walls of MSNBC who reported today that Michael Jackson's parents were paid to speak out and defend their son on ABC's 20/20 show last week.

She has reported that and insider informed her that his parents were "getting a percentage of the profit form the international sales of the interview.".

If that is not enough to make your skin crawl, his parents financial problem which is no secret, has caused them to set up a 3rd party payment system so they do not directly receive payment from ABC so the Jackson's creditors won't be able to go after the proceeds as long as they are not paid directly.   

The Jackson family spokesperson and ABC refused to return calls and comment on the allegations of payment for the interview.

In the past Jackson's family was willing to speak to PBS in regard to an expose on "checkbook journalism" for $100,000.00.

Some other exciting King of Pop news is that District Attorney Thomas Sneddon said in a statement that the Santa Barbara County prosecutors announced they will file charges case against Michael Jackson on this Thursday or Friday.

They are expecting a media circus and as a result delayed filing charges which is usually done at the time of arrest. Sneddon said part of the delay was to hire a firm to handle the public relations and set up a web site to disseminate information to the hundreds of news organization that are following the case.

As expected Jackson family spokesman Brian Oxman immediately criticized Sneddon's hiring of the same firm that also represents the Cartoon Network to deal with the media. He said the hiring of such a firm was improper, because "a district attorney is supposed to try the case in court, not in the press."

Oxman said that "It is an affront to common sense, if not professional ethics, for a DA to have a celebrity crisis management team, which is what this new PR firm styles itself as being," and then went on to say "First we had a press conference where the DA told jokes, and now we have a PR firm the DA has hired that also represents the Cartoon Network."

Stay tuned here for the news as it happens!