Dear Oprah,

Dear Oprah,

Horatio Nelson once said, “Desperate affairs require desperate measures.” Judging by the recurring headlines detailing OWN Network’s dismal performance after a year and a half on the air, you must be looking for those “desperate measures”. We can’t help but notice the irony of the current situation: the man you spent the better part of the last decade, bashing and stopping short of labeling a child molester, is the very man’s name and progeny, you are now using to salvage your sinking network. No doubt, at the top of OWN TV’s Rescue List would be a repeat of HIStory?

Remember in 1993, your Oprah show experienced record ratings, over 100 millions viewers tuned in, to watch you interview the world's biggest superstar, the King of Pop, Michael Jackson. While you were a somewhat hot commodity in the United States then, Michael Jackson introduced you to an international audience.

When a few years later, Mr. Jackson had sex abuse allegations leveled against him, we all watched in dismay you turned on him, appointed yourself judge and jury, deciding even before evidence was presented in court, that he MUST be guilty of the charges. After a jury of his peers rejected those accusations and turned a NOT GUILTY verdict on ALL counts, you continued to openly question his innocence with snide remarks, and demonized him to your audience and guests. You have made it very clear, whether by airing “Is Michael Jackson Guilty?” show during jury deliberations or molestation shows before or after interviewing members of Mr. Jackson’s family, that Lady O’s opinion is more important than those 12 jurors who sat through the grueling trial.

Randy Jackson, younger brother of Mr. Jackson confirmed in a 2010 interview, that Mr. Jackson was well aware of your smear campaign and your dubious attitude towards him. Though he never made his feelings about you public, his brother reiterated, “She [Oprah] is the last person on earth he [Michael Jackson] would want around his children." Having crowned yourself a “child defender”, we find it distasteful, disgraceful and hypocritical, that you are now using grieving children, whose father you tried to sway a jury to send behind bars, when it suits you. Few in the media have called out your shameful exploitation and hypocrisy, but we applaud the few who did.

Those Who Remember