Tupac/LA Times Hoax: Does it undermine confidence in the media?
The Los Angeles Times today issued an apology for a report last week that linked Sean “Diddy” Combs to an attack on rap singer Tupac Shakur in 1994. According to the story on the Times’ web site today:
The story first appeared March 17 on latimes.com under the headline “An Attack on Tupac Shakur Launched a Hip-Hop War.” The article described a Nov. 30, 1994, ambush at Quad Recording Studios in New York, where the rap singer was pistol-whipped and shot several times by three men. No one has been charged in the crime, but before his death two years later, Shakur said repeatedly that he suspected allies of rap impresario Sean “Diddy” Combs.
The apology comes after a report yesterday by The Smoking Gun web site, which flat-out declared that the LA Times was hoaxed with forged FBI documents.
…those FBI reports, dubbed “302s” due to the numbered government form on which they are prepared, are nowhere to be found in the bureau’s computerized Automated Case Support database, [The Smoking Gun] has learned.
NPR’s Morning Edition reported on the story this morning, with an interview from one of The Smoking Gun’s staff.
Now, it’s a pretty popular pastime to bash the media, so I may be sorry for asking about this. But hopefully, we can do better than a simple day of media-bashing. People need to get their news somewhere, right? Right? C’mon! I’ve got two kids to put through college!
But what does a story like this mean for readers? How does a case like this affect your trust of news sources? Does a story like this shake your faith in the media, if you had any? Through what lens do you interpret the news you read online or in print, or watch on television, or hear on the radio?
Kurt is the director of social media for the Post-Dispatch, where he has worked since August 2002. He's been a journalist since 1982, covering municipal government, courts, education and two hurricanes as a reporter before becoming an editor. 
For the most part, I don’t lend much credence to what major newspapers and other main stream media outlets put out. Given the years of low quality reporting from the LA Times, their getting hoxed doesn’t surprise me at all. What is a surprise though, and I give them a lot of credit for it, is that they quickly made the retraction and did so in an upfront and honest way. The LA Times, along with most other major papers, usually equivocate their retractions and clarifications if indeed they bother to give them at all.
Newspapers have been going the way of the dinosaur for years. Most intelligent consumers of news know you have to go elsewhere for credible and timely information.
Whatever fleeting confidence I had in the media was utterly destroyed by the almost completely uncritical reporting in late ‘02 and early ‘03 that helped, on some level, get us into the current Iraq debacle. That some newspaper wrote some silly and not-terribly-grounded-in-fact article about a couple of rappers is about as surprising or life-affecting as the sun rising in the east.
Global warming peaked 10 years ago? Thank goodness I don’t have to feel guilty anymore. (How come we didn’t hear about this earlier from the MSM? You would think Al Gore would be the first to tell us.)
I guess in that case we don’t need investigative reporting on the Green/Wind power that Ameren is soliciting donations toward. $15 a month for … a guilt-free concience? or for lining corporate pockets?
Ryan A,
Funny that you should mention the “green power” initiative that Ameren is pushing. They automatically enrolled me in that. I called to have it removed, and they were apologetic about it, immediately removing me from the program. The lady then explained that their system had glitched and enrolled loads of people. If I hadn’t been diligent about checking my bill, I never would have noticed – Ameren would have just been raking in the extra dough.
How about it Kurt, anyone want to look into a story on how the local utility company “accidentally” automatically enrolled tons of people into a dubious “green” program that essentially only grows corporate profits? Or is everyone too busy “covering” the latest Gossip involving a band director who may or may not have done something inappropriate?
The news often uses gossip as legitimate news. It can often take hours and sometimes days to get the real story.
I blame the fact that most news programs are now 90 minutes long. They have nothing but time to fill so they toss in whatever old thing they heard while in the bathroom or at the water cooler to fill in the open time. They will just retract it later if its wrong.
The problem is many people act on the first story they hear.
Right or wrong they react. Usually rather badly.
Some media outlets have always had other agenda than reporting news and facts. Witness the Yippies of years gone by getting scoops ten years ahead of the mainline media. They had way less resources and money, but they got the facts. Mainline media would deny what they reported (with a little nudging from the politicos), then ten years later report the same things, and take credit for “finding the facts”. I would love to see how the old gang would have handled Fox News and the Bush Boy Crew. We miss you Dana and Aron! For sure.
I notice most media now subscribes to the same news feeds, correct or not. One local main newspaper can’t even edit and proof their publication properly. Guess those jounalism degrees don’t mean what they used to. The Post-Dispatch is known by conservatives as a “liberal rag” and much worse. Yet, this paper supports many of the most conservative folks in town.
You can’t please everyone, but it seems it is getting easier and easier to plant stories to advance an agenda or two. Some folks prefer to have media agree with their prejudices than be truthful. Like JN said…YOU CAN’T HANDLE THE TRUTH!!!!!!
Watcha gonna do?
The retraction boxes tend to be WAY too smalll IMHO.
For stories about the entertainment industry, I usually go to perezhilton.com. He is usually very accurate and funny as well.
Historically the media was never a reliable source of information. It was only with the advent of television where actual on the scene film could accompany the story that the media gained a perceived integrity boost, i.e. Walter Cronkite and the eveing news. That has long since evaporated.
The ability to distinguish the “what so” from the “meaning”, and the sensationalism to sell from the responsibility to report will always plague the media. The media segments that do the best job of this distinction are sports and weather. I can clearly see the stats from the opinion.
The story might be interesting if the parties involved were remotely interesting…which they are not….so really…who cares?
“The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers.”….Thomas Jefferson