Crush Liberalism

LA Times learned nothing from Rathergate

While this isn’t exactly a story about media bias, it’s certainly an example of how the MSM’s institutional sloppiness and lust for titillation (uh-huh-huh…I said “tit”illation!) keeps a spotlight of shame on a once-vaunted industry.  From National Review:

The LA Times has started an internal investigation to determine the validity of documents at the core of a recent story linking Sean Combs to the murder of Tupac Shakur:

Los Angeles Times Editor Russ Stanton said today he will launch an internal investigation into the authenticity of documents used in a story last week asserting that the newspaper had uncovered new evidence implicating associates of rap impresario Sean “Diddy” Combs in a bloody 1994 assault on hip-hop superstar Tupac Shakur.

Stanton ordered the review after the editor of the celebrity-centric website, The Smoking Gun, told the newspaper that he had reason to doubt The Times’ account and in particular the FBI records that were supposed to buttress the story.

The website this morning posted a story saying the records — purportedly statements by an unnamed informant to an FBI agent, which the newspaper posted on its website — appeared to be forgeries. The Smoking Gun (www.thesmokinggun.com) said the documents seemed suspicious for multiple reasons, including the fact that they appeared to be written on a typewriter, rather than a computer, and included blacked-out sections not typically found in such documents.

Although The Times has not identified the source of the purported FBI reports, The Smoking Gun story asserts that they were created by convicted con man James Sabatino, who the website contends was a starry-eyed music fan with a long rap sheet and a history of exaggerating his place in the rap music world.

“The Times appears to have been hoaxed by an imprisoned con man and accomplished document forger, an audacious swindler who has created a fantasy world in which he managed hip-hop luminaries,” the report on the website says.

The rest here. 

Boy, it’s a good thing the MSM has all of those layers of fact-checking that us bloggers don’t have, right?  Look on the bright side, LAT: you could always argue “fake, but accurate” like Gunga Dan!

March 27, 2008 - Posted by crushliberalism | Dan Rather, media bias