Charles Thomson (journalist)

Charles Thomson (born 18 April 1988) is an award-winning British journalist specialising in popular black music. He has contributed to publications including The Sun, The Mirror, The Guardian, MOJO, Wax Poetics and the Huffington Post. His past interviewees include music legends Martha Reeves, Eddy Grant, George Clinton and James Brown. He has also contributed to two popular biographies of Michael Jackson.

Work

James Brown

In October 2006, having just begun his journalism degree studies, Thomson was invited to a pre-show press conference Brown at The Roundhouse in London. During the press conference, Thomson asked Brown about an album he was working on. Less than two months after the press conference, Brown died.^[1][2]

In 2008, Thomson would interview Brown's former co-writer Fred Wesley for Wax Poetics magazine. During the interview Wesley spoke about working on Brown's final album in 2005. The interview inspired Thomson to research the album, spending several months interviewing more than a dozen people who were directly involved in the album's production. The resulting article, "James Brown: The Lost Album", was printed in Thomson’s self-published JIVE magazine, winning him a special commendation award in the feature writing category at the Guardian Student Media Awards in November 2009.^[3][4]

In October 2010, Tomi Rae Brown, widow of James Brown, awarded Thomson the most in-depth interview she had ever given to any reporter. In the article published by Sawf News, Brown spoke about her husband's 2004 arrest for domestic assault and how she nursed him through cancer in 2005. She also claimed that Brown's legs had been sawn off after his death to obtain DNA to prove her son's paternity.^[5] Thomson has also written about Brown for MOJO magazine and spoken about the singer on Los Angeles radio station KPFA-FM.^[1]

Michael Jackson

Throughout 2009 he contributed regularly to Britain's Sun newspaper as a Michael Jackson expert. His work for the Sun began in March 2009 when he received insider information on Jackson's imminent arrival in the UK to announce his "This Is It" concerts and helped the Sun to obtain exclusive pictures of Jackson disembarking his private jet.

Thomson said he was contacted by a British tabloid to supply information about the 1993 sexual abuse allegations against Jackson, only to have them replace his carefully researched information with the common myths he advised them to avoid,^[6] and that the same misinformation was in every article he read about the 2009 suicide of Evan Chandler, the father of Jackson's accuser.^[6] He noted when Jackson's FBI file was released the following month, the contents were portrayed by the media as giving an impression of guilt even though the file strongly supported his innocence.^[6] He noted how Gene Simmons' allegations in 2010 about Jackson molesting children received over a hundred times more coverage than his interview with Jackson's long-time guitarist, Jennifer Batten, who rebutted Simmons' claims.^[6][7]

For celebrity news website Sawf News, Thomson has interviewed several of Jackson's former collaborators including tour guitarist Jennifer Batten, "This Is It" dancer Kriyss Grant, former manager Dieter Wiesner and publicist Stuart Backerman.^[8][9][10]

On the fifth anniversary of Jackson's acquittal on child abuse charges, Thomson posted an essay on his Huffington Post blog about the media's inaccurate reporting on the star's trial. Entitled "One of the Most Shameful Episodes in Journalistic History", the piece drew on trial transcripts and compared testimony in the case to inaccurate newspaper, magazine and TV reports about the proceedings. The piece was later incorporated into an anti-bullying curriculum on words and violence by the Voices Education Project.^[11][12]

Thomson has contributed to two best-selling biographies of Michael Jackson. In July 2009 Thomson wrote a half-page article for inclusion in Michael Heatley's pictorial biography Michael Jackson: Life of a Legend. In February 2010 Thomson penned exclusive passages for inclusion in J. Randy Taraborrelli’s book Michael Jackson: The Magic, the Madness, the Whole Story. ^[13][14]

Awards

In November 2009 Thomson won the Special Commendation Award in the feature writing category at the Guardian Student Media Awards. He was handed the award for his article "James Brown: The Lost Album" by Guardian writer Hannah Pool and radio presenter Colin Murray at the ceremony in Camden's Proud Galleries, London.^[15]

The Special Commendation Award was created in 2009 especially to acknowledge the strength of Thomson's article, and one competition judge later commented: “I thought it was the best piece of student journalism I’d read in a long time, if not ever.” The panel of judges also added: “The feature was an extraordinary, sustained piece on James Brown, a poignant portrait of a man in his last days.” ^[4]

References

External links

• Official website
• Huffington Post articles