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| Veteran journalist disrupts world of hip hop
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Los Angeles Times reporter Chuck Philips made the false allegation that Sean “Puffy” Combs and his associates carried out the 1994 shooting of Tupac Shakur. Philips’ article contained FBI reports forged by now-incarcerated James Sabatino. Although Philips defends his article and reporting techniques, many are shocked that a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist would tarnish his reputation by implementing fraudulent information from an unaccredited source.
According to the Smoking Gun’s website, the computerized Automated Case Support Database does not contain any of the FBI reports, forged by Sabatino, in the article. Sabatino created the FBI reports in the Allenwood federal penitentiary in White Deer, Penn. The Los Angeles Times claims that the online article, which first appeared on March 17, contained two FBI reports cited in the six months in the making paper.
Further investigation shows that the documents used in the article contained many grammatical errors and improper usage of FBI acronyms. The documents, created on a type writer, also contained misspellings of common words such as “makeing” and “durring.” A former FBI agent told Smoking Gun that they stopped using typewriters over 30 years ago. According to the paper’s editor, Russ Stanton, “We are taking these very seriously and have begun our own investigation.”
Philips undoubtedly tarnished his reputation as a credible journalist by unknowingly using bad sources. Many people are not sympathetic, especially the hip hop moguls, to his major error because Philips had a six month span to verify his sources. He should have been suspicious when he noticed grammatical errors in an official FBI report.
As a Pulitzer Prize winner for beat reporting on corruption in the entertainment industry, Philips is expected to follow a higher standard of writing. It is safe to say that his current situation will destroy his credibility as a writer for the entertainment industry. In any case, the hip hop industry will not let Philips’ fumble go unheard.
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Posted by SayWhatSarah on 2008-04-01 13:55:00 | Rating: | Views: 46
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