05.17.06
Mendacity and the Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times’ staff seems to be following their normal protocol with their lackluster and bizarrely slanted coverage of the Anthony Pellicano case, at least according to an article by Jan Golab in Front Page Magazine from 2005. The dynamic duo of Pulitzer Prize winning LAT beat reporter, Chuck Philips, and his apparent protégé at the City Desk, Andrew Blankstein, apparently made a similar incredulous appearance reporting on the Biggy Small fiasco. The following excerpt raises some intriguing similarities in the quality, or lack there of, for the LAT’s authenticity. Please take the liberty to substitute the word appearing second in the parentheses in bold for the text in the original writing and the resemblance to the Pellicano case will become more apparent hopefully.
During the [Biggie/Pellicano] [trial/continuing coverage of the indictment] this [summer/spring], the Times’ overt bias became a hot topic of conversation among [court watchers/journalists and bloggers]. [This reporter/Yours truly] [covered/read about] the [trial/preliminary hearings] [for an October 2005 cover story in XXL Magazine/ in every article that has appeared in both the New York Times, Vanity Fair and the Associated Press]. “Am I [involved in/reading about] the same trial that the LAT is covering?” an incredulous [Perry Sanders/me] asked at one point. [Sanders/Saunders] confronted Times reporter Andrew Blankstein, Chuck Philip’s apparent understudy, for including a gratuitous smear against the [Wallace attorneys/federal prosecutors] in a story about the [LAPD's hiding of evidence/leaking of secret FBI interviews to the NYT]. Blankstein told him: My editor made me put that in there. The L.A. Times was described in one [Wallace/U.S. Attorney's] motion as a blatantly one-sided critic of the [Wallace law suit/federal indictment]. [One out-of-town reporter/Me again] commented: I’ve heard stories about The L.A. Times (agenda-driven) reporting on this story, but I didn’t believe it. Now that I’ve been [sitting in court/reading other newspapers] everyday and [reading/thinking about] their stories, I have to wonder.
[Detective Russell Poole* believes/ A whole lot of excellent journalists from Nicky Finke in LA to the New York Post's Page Six team believe] the Times coverage is simply part of the widespread political pressure to protect the [former chief (of police)/forget it, this might be true without any alteration]. They (The L.A. Times) just don’t have credibility, [Poole/Most of the journalistic community] commented following [the mistrial this summer/the LAT's coverage of the Pellicano case thus far]. They take some truth and intertwine it with propaganda, which is basically what the LAPD was doing with the whole Rampart scandal. Somebody needs to ask the tough questions about who is responsible for all this. Poole likened Chuck Philips to [Detective Steve Katz, the LAPD detective who forgot the jailhouse confessions and other evidence he left in his desk drawers and which led to the mistrial/a mendacious turd blossom]. His career is shot. If you lie one time and you get caught, there’s no way you can [testify/report] in another case. You’re not reliable.
Life always proves to be stranger than fiction and both Chuck Philips and Andrew Blankstein are key reporters for the LAT on the Pellicano fiasco as well. Do you think the adage “History tends to repeat itself” or a “A leopard doesn’t change its spots” is more applicable in this situation? Let’s go with the leopard thing, shall we?
*Detective Russell Poole was one of the good guys in the infamous Ramparts scandal who Philips ostensibly misquoted.
