Greg Dixon: Serious case made into freak show

It is curious what passes for entertainment these days. A casual glance through the telly listings this week reveals that people nearly drowning (as seen in Piha Rescue), the reckless madness of Auckland drivers (as seen in Motorway Patrol) and wife or husband swapping (as seen in Trading Spouses) are all on offer and evidently there to provide cheap thrills and/or a cheap laugh at someone else's expense.

Then there's the sort of television that likes to dress itself as something rather more serious, say as documentary, but can't hide its real heart: freak-show entertainment.

This Thursday at 8.30pm viewers will have a choice between some poor Indonesian boy who has a facial tumour in TV One's Expose "documentary" The Boy With A Tumour For A Face (this comes close on the heels of this slot's "documentary" The Child Who Is Older Than Her Grandmother) and TV3's Jamie's Wish, a "documentary" about a 9-year-old with the dying wish to donate his organs to other children.

I'm sure both will be given sober treatment, but you can't help feeling that little will be served by either story. They smack of exploitation, though I may be wrong.

However, these are minor examples of the dubious practice of manipulating important or grim material for entertainment. The worst, most recent example, has been the Michael Jackson trial.

Now of course this is news. One of the world's most famous entertainers, quite probably the world's most famous entertainer, is in court on serious charges. And yes Michael Jackson is capable of turning almost anything, from going shopping to showing fans his new child, into a circus.

But, outside most of the news coverage, there has been something extraordinarily distasteful about how this trial has been covered. It didn't surprise me in the slightest that the programme called The Michael Jackson Trial, which included re-creations of courtroom testimony (and a guy dressed as Jackson) and lawyers chewing over the details of each day's events, screened on Sky's E! channel. This was the worst of kind tabloid TV junk involving a celebrity, so it deserved to be on a channel famous for its tabloid TV junk involving celebrities.

But you might have thought our free-to-air networks would have steered clear of such trash. Unfortunately not.

On Monday night TV2 screened something called Michael Jackson's Mind. Putting aside this so-called documentary was old - made before the trial began - it was a perfect example of exploitative entertainment dressed up as a serious consideration of its subject.

The British makers had drafted in psychologists to offer opinions, but the show, while claiming to be attempting balance, was tabloid junk.

It was awash with speculation and sought to manufacture facts from assumptions and the man's genuine strangeness. It was pure exploitation, pure freak-show entertainment.

For example, whether Jackson is guilty or not, is our understanding of this man helped by comments such as, "if this guy was your next door neighbour and he was a truck driver and he dressed as a toy soldier and wore lipstick and make-up and he wanted to sleep with your children you would kill him"? I think not.

Let's not forget what is at the heart of this case: paedophilia. And let's remember what is at stake here: someone's career and reputation.

Is this fit material for cheap entertainment on TV? No, of course it's not.