I never thought I’d say this about a real network news operation, but ABC News is allowing itself to be used by Joseph Jackson, father of Michael Jackson, and a crooked concert promoter named Leonard Rowe.

Readers of this column and of my past column know that Jackson Sr. and Rowe tried to push their way into the Michael Jackson London concerts this past March. Jackson Sr. was furious that he had no part of the shows, and no cut financially.

J. Jackson and Rowe called this reporter trying to convince me to help them. According to sources at Jackson’s Holmby Hills rented mansion, they badgered Michael incessantly.

Attached here is a letter that Michael finally wrote to Leonard Rowe in May, telling him to take a hike. It reads: “this is to inform you that you do not represent me.” How much clearer could he be?

What ABC News is not telling its audience: that when Rowe and Jackson Sr. did not get their way, they went into business with Patrick Allocco of AllGood Entertainment. At the time of Michael’s death, AllGood was suing him.

What ABC News is telling its audience: in October 2008, singer R. Kelly was awarded $3.4 million by a Los Angeles Superior Court judge who determined that Leonard Rowe had defrauded him. Rowe was also ordered to pay R&B star Ne Yo $700,000 in conjunction with the same tour.

This is the man ABC News has let go on the air and tell the world he was Michael Jackson’s financial advisor. Leonard Rowe was never Michael Jackson’s financial advisor, not for a minute.

For a while this spring, Tohme R. Tohme managed Michael Jackson until he was dismissed. Late in the spring, Frank DiLeo, Michael’s trusted manager during the “Thriller” era and his steadfast friend for more than 25 years, returned as his manager. Jackson also rehired John Branca, his attorney for more than 20 years, and Joel Katz, the respected Atlanta music business attorney, to look after his affairs.

It’s shocking to see Chris Connelly, a very good journalist, interview Joseph Jackson on national television and let him spew nonsense about “foul play” and his son’s illnesses. Connelly doesn’t ask Jackson Sr. if he has any culpability in Michael’s death. Witnesses at the Holmby Hills house say Jackson Sr. ‘ whom Michael feared ‘ played on the singer’s lack of self esteem and hounded him.

“I have no money and it’s your fault!” a friend of Michael’s heard the father yell at the son in the month before his death.

You can only imagine what was going on in Michael Jackson’s life the weekend of March 28, 2009, for example. This reporter got sent a press release from one Ladd Biro, representing Jackson Sr. and Leonard Rowe, announcing that they’d taken over his management. It simply wasn’t true, but the pair hoped someone in the press would bite, print it, and make it sound true.

There are other people still filling the airwaves, by the way, who sued Michael Jackson and now purport to have been his close friends. It’s shocking. Brian Oxman is still out there on low end TV shows. There are others. The shows don’t seem to have researchers, and do no vetting of their guests. Michael Jackson isn’t buried, but his memory is being trashed nightly in an effort to get ratings.

In the end, though, ABC News must accept responsibility for turning this into a sideshow. Joseph Jackson told them, and it’s in their transcript, that “no artist could do shows like that, back to back …” Has ABC even looked at Jackson’s schedule? It was designed after the first two nights to give him an extraordinary amount of time off between performances. He wasn’t doing 50 shows in one month. They were spaced out over six months. And so on. It’s enough now.

Debbie Rowe, the mother of Michael Jackson’s two eldest children, wants her kids. She retains legal rights as a parent through a 2006 court order. Her lawyer, Eric George, has sent a letter to the New York Post demanding a retraction for a story they ran today claiming that she would sell the kids to the Jackson family for millions.

Debbie had better get her retraction. I am going to tell you something now I did not write before. In the moments that the world discovered Michael Jackson had had a heart attack and might be dead, Debbie — whom I’ve known for many years — called me. She was crying so loudly I could barely make out what she said. She did say, first, before anything else, “I’ve got to get my kids.”

Rowe never “sold” her kids to anyone. As she said to me a few days after Michael died: “I lost my best friend.” She was heartbroken over Michael’s death. Debbie is not a public person. She is extremely private. I cringe when I see her in that video clip, screaming at the paparazzi who stuck a camera in her face. When challenged, Debbie will fight back. She had every right to confront that idiot with the camera. He was in her face.

For years Debbie and Michael had a very satisfactory arrangement. Then, in February 2003, Martin Bashir’s “Living With Michael Jackson” aired on ABC. It depicted Michael as a child abuser who let young boys sleep in his bed. Debbie went into action mode. She volunteered to be interviewed for a TV special so she could praise Michael as a father. The show aired, and did Jackson a lot of good. The reality: He never spoke to her, or thanked her. She wasn’t paid. She did it for the father of her children.

A few months later, Debbie gave another TV interview, this time about her horse ranch. Jackson, feeling his usual cash flow pinch, responded through lawyers. He claimed that Rowe had violated her confidentiality agreement. He cut off her monthly alimony payments.

That’s when things went from bad to worse. The Nation of Islam, known for being viciously anti-Semitic, had moved into Michael’s life. Debbie, already in a court fight with Michael, now worried that her kids were in danger. When she was married to her first husband, Richard Edelman, she’d converted to Judaism. She thought of Prince and Paris as half-Jewish. The issue was added to her court situation.

On top of these things, Debbie felt that at no time from Michael’s arrest in November 2003 until his exoneration in June 2005 that she was included in what was going on with her kids or Michael. She testified for him at the trial in April 2005. Her testimony was considered a turning point in getting Michael acquitted. He never even thanked her.

Eventually, Debbie’s alimony was restored. She saw her kids in the summer of 2005 but was limited to telling them she was a friend. Michael Jackson would not let her reveal she was their mother. Then the kids were whisked off to Bahrain, Ireland, France and Las Vegas. Debbie went back to her life as horse rancher. She lived by all their agreements. But when Michael died three weeks ago, she saw red. She knew what his life had been like with Joseph Jackson. And still, as I reported here, she wanted to wait to do anything until Michael was buried.

But Michael Jackson has never been buried. His greedy family continues to bicker over how to profit off the location of his final resting place. In the meantime, Joseph Jackson has told interviewers — for money, no less — that he plans to create an act with the kids. He wants to exploit Michael’s children since Michael — who hated him — is gone and and cannot be abused by his father again. The Jackson side is planting stories that Debbie will accept more money in exchange for her parental rights and custody.

Here’s the reality: Debbie Rowe gave birth to those kids. She’s 50, not 80. She can easily afford to raise them. She is the biological mother. They look like her. If she wants them, a California court will likely give them to her. The more she’s provoked by hurtful, inaccurate gossip, the more likely she will go for something more than visitation. She should. She and Michael, she told me, had a clear understanding of how the kids should be raised.

The New York Post, the British tabloids and other outlets had better get this thing straight in their heads and calm down. Debbie Rowe is not going to stand for this anymore.