The LA Times ran a cover story back on March 17th that turned out was total bullshit.

It’s not everyday that one of the biggest newspapers in America fucks up (or it’s not everyday that one of the biggest newspapers in America admits it fucked up). In addition to the retraction the LA Times will send Puffy some candy, flowers, and a card. In exchange I’m thinking the LA Times will get a big fat libel lawsuit and Puffy will again get paid.

From the LA Times piece:

An article and related materials published on the Los Angeles Times website on March 17 have been removed from the site because they relied heavily on information that The Times no longer believes to be credible.

The article, titled “An Attack on Tupac Shakur Launched a Hip-Hop War” and written by Times staff writer Chuck Philips, purported to relate “new” information about a 1994 assault on rap star Tupac Shakur, including a description of events contained in FBI reports.

The Times has since concluded that the FBI reports were fabricated and that some of the other sources relied on — including the person Philips previously believed to be the “confidential source” cited in the FBI reports — do not support major elements of the story.
(more…)

So remember that story in the LA Times a couple of weeks ago linking Sean “Diddy” Combs to the shooting death of rapper Tupac Shakur? Apparently it’s bullshit:

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, conducted business with Combs, Shakur, Busta Rhymes, and The Notorious B.I.G., and even served as Combs’s trusted emissary to Death Row Records boss Marion “Suge” Knight during the outset of hostilities in the bloody East Coast-West Coast rap feud.

The con man, James Sabatino, 31, has long sought to insinuate himself, after the fact, in a series of important hip-hop events, from Shakur’s shooting to the murder of The Notorious B.I.G.. In fact, however, Sabatino was little more than a rap devotee, a wildly impulsive, overweight white kid from Florida whose own father once described him in a letter to a federal judge as “a disturbed young man who needed attention like a drug.” Sabatino is pictured in the above mug shot.

The author of the story was, of course, none other than Chuck Phillips, who previously won a Pullitzer for his reporting on corruption in entertainment industry, who just the other day, defended his sourcing on the story to MTV News:

“I often get approached by a lot of people, and then I talk to a lot of people who I thought knew someone and I find out they’re lying,” Philips said. “It takes a lot of time to develop. I’m not gonna write it just because someone says it. I have to, in my mind, have double or triple sourcing on something and people who hadn’t spoken to each other and I can assure myself that they haven’t spoken to each other. Because I’ve had two people try to set me up. … I would catch them. But if you have three, you never get tripped up. I learned that writing about the music business, because I’d write about big deals that were coming out or a firing that would happen five days before it happened. And you had to be right about that sh–, because those guys would sue your ass. But in this case, I don’t write anything until I feel it’s confident, it’s true. I know all kinds of stuff I don’t write about. But then if I know that it’s true, I’m gonna write about it. But I never tell anybody what it is, because it’s unfair if it’s not true. And there are people that will lie to you. Same thing happens in the music business, when I wrote about that. Same thing happened in the government. The police lie to you all the time. Police write up documents that are completely false, and you can print that. As a journalist, if they write up a police report that’s false, you can put that on the front page of the newspaper and not be sued, because it’s a police document.

“People are talking about that document,” Philips added. “I had all of the information before I got the FBI document. [Editor's note: Philips obtained FBI records cited in Monday's story that said an informant told authorities in 2002 that Jimmy Rosemond and James Sabatino set up Shakur.] And when I got the FBI document, that was really like frosting on the cake for me. Because in this document, by somebody who I had never spoke to, I did speak to them eventually before the story ran, but who I didn’t know or speak to, he said almost the same thing that I found out. So for me, it’s just another resource, but for everybody who reads it, ‘Oh, it has to be true. The FBI is sourcing it.’ “

Um, RONGGGGGGGGGGGGGG

The LA Times published a piece on Tupac’s death today entitled Blood Feud: An attack on Tupac Shakur launched a hip-hop war. It’s a deep piece that throws a lot out there:

Now, newly discovered information, including interviews with people who were at the studio that night, lends credence to Shakur’s insistence that associates of rap impresario Sean “Diddy” Combs were behind the assault. Their alleged motives: to punish Shakur for disrespecting them and rejecting their business overtures and, not incidentally, to curry favor with Combs.

The information focuses on two New York hip-hop figures — talent manager James “Jimmy Henchman” Rosemond and promoter James Sabatino, who is now in prison for unrelated crimes.

FBI records obtained recently by The Times say that a confidential informant told authorities in 2002 that Rosemond and Sabatino “set up the rapper Tupac Shakur to get shot at Quad Studios.” The informant said Sabatino had told him that Shakur “had to be dealt with.”

Puffy’s response:

“This story is beyond ridiculous and is completely false.Neither Biggie nor I had any knowledge of any attack before, during, or after it happened. It is a complete lie to suggest that there was any involvement by Biggie or myself. I am shocked that the Los Angeles Times would be so irresponsible as to publish such a baseless and completely untrue story.”

Damn.

In an interview with the LA Times, freelance writer David Peisner claims that his controversial reviews of NAS and The Black Crowes in Maxim were assigned to him as previews, with the star-ratings and review context added after he had turned them in:

“I’m a freelance writer. I was assigned to write previews of the Black Crowes and Nas albums. I did that. When the issue came out, the previews were laid out as reviews complete with star ratings. I never at any point or to anyone claimed to have heard these albums in their entirety. Whatever decisions Maxim made after I turned in my work were beyond my control.”

Of course Black Crowes manager Peter Angelus had little sympathy for Peisner:

“There’s no accountability for Dave Peisner, editor James Kaminsky or Maxim magazine. They issued a partial apology to their readership, but no apology directly to the artist whose work they denigrated without having heard more than one song, while attempting to pass it off as an album review. I think Peisner’s claim is absurd. He wrote a review of music that he never heard, he disparaged both the band and the material. He said, ‘It hasn’t left Chris Robinson and the gang much room for growth,’ and yet now he’s going to attempt to pass off his actions on Maxim? Absurd.”

I’d like to congratulate both NAS and The Black Crowes for getting so much mileage out of what amounts to common knowledge. OMG A REVIEWER FROM MAXIM TALKS OUT OF HIS ASS!!??? Cue the crocodile tears is five, four…. Brings new meaning to the phrase, no press is bad press! Not to mention when was the last time Maxim was talked about by anyone beyond 18 year dudes who just got out of high school but don’t have enough balls to subscribe to Playboy? This is a win-win situation for everybody. Now excuse me while I write my scathing reviews of Guns ‘N’ Roses Chinese Democracy and Coldplay’s Prospekt. Coming soon to Synthesis.net