By: Joe Strupp Linda Deutsch, the Associated Press veteran reporter who had covered most major celebrity trials of the past 40 years -- from Charles Manson to the recent Phil Spector murder conviction -- believes Michael Jackson never really recovered from his child molestation trial, even though he was acquitted.
Speaking as she worked the phones at AP?s Los Angeles bureau Thursday along with others following the pop singer?s surprise death at 50, Deutsch recalled the toll the 2005 trial likely took on the singer.
?He was living proof that a major celebrity acquitted of a crime is never truly acquitted in the public eye,? Deutsch told E&P. ?I think he never really recovered from the trial.?
Still, she expected his upcoming tour to happen, saying she was planning to get tickets to a London show.
Recalling the child molestation case she covered for AP, Deutsch said it was the biggest press corps she had ever seen for a case: ?It had 2,000 media credentials to the trial, at least 500 were there every day. It was the largest press corps of anything I ever covered, including O.J.?
Deutsch said she had just come out of a meeting at the Los Angeles bureau when someone rushed into the newsroom with word Jackson had been taken in an ambulance. She said it is unclear who broke the story, but believed TMZ.com had it first online.
She also credited the Los Angeles Times with first word among newspapers, followed by AP: ?We all hit the phones right away.?
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