Speaking
Diane has a lengthy and wide ranging body of work centered on crime and justice issues. Over the years she has covered many of the nation’s most sensational headline-making crime stories and trials.
She can speak to a wide range of different cases, issues and topics and always relishes the Q and A portion following her address.
Diane frequently tailors her presentations to the audience she is addressing for maximum interest. For example, there are many interest groups distressed by exploitive guardianships or conservatorships. She can speak directly to the concerns of each group: the elderly, especially widowed women and their caretaker daughters, who are most affected by abuses inherent in the system. Also to members of the Baby Boomer generation worried about their financial future and bequeathments; disability advocate groups; law enforcement organizations including Police, Sheriff, District Attorney, Attorney Generals and Judgeship associations; lawyers and law schools and those in the fiduciary community.
Sample Speaking Topics
Guardianship – The system designed to “protect” at-risk Americans often victimizes them.
Dimond’s latest book—We’re Here to Help: When Guardianship Goes Wrong—focuses on the nation’s scandal plagued guardianship/conservatorship system and the shocking human suffering of those caught up in abusive situations. Between the bad actors within the system, and the lobbyists working hard to maintain the status quo, can the public expect anything to change? How did the system become so infected with the corrupt? Diane discusses real life examples of guardianships gone wrong and also offers tips on how to protect oneself from becoming unfairly entrapped in the system.
Child Predators – Realize: the people who groom our children seduce the parents first.
How can we protect our children from predators? During research for her book Be Careful Who You Love: Inside the Michael Jackson Case Diane came to understand the mindset and modes operandi of these criminals. Who are they, and how are they able to operate undetected for so long? As Ken Lanning, the FBI’s Special Agent who wrote the bureau’s often quoted guide, Child Molesters: A Behavioral Analysis put it in Dimond’s book, society needs to get past the idea that only monsters molest children. Lanning said, “Pedophiles usually work hard, go to church, give money to charity and children in the neighborhood, and are generally helpful to others in the community,” and that behavior often shields them from suspicion. Diane reveals why children “keep the secret” in the face of repeated assaults, and what the experts say is the suitable punishment for a serial child molester.
Why doesn’t the public trust the media? The evidence is evident!
Diane’s book about the so-called White House Gate Crashers, Cirque du Salahi, provides a journalistic biopsy of how a Washington Post storyline (that was blatantly impossible) ignited a worldwide outcry. The erroneous story about Michaele and Tareq Salahi was reported as “fact” and even resulted in Congressional hearings. Then there were the media’s convolutions over the Catholic high school student wearing a MAGA hat who supposedly brazenly confronted a Native American man – except he didn’t. Or the media’s woeful hand wringing over “voter disenfranchisement” in the last presidential election when, in reality, voters turned out in the highest numbers in three decades. How does the media get so much so wrong – and why don’t media organizations ever truly apologize?
