Newspapers and Their Reporters

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There is no such thing as investigative reporting regarding any City/County department unless one offical, such as the Mayor or Supervisor, decides to criticize a department or another city official as Villaraigosa did with the Delgadillo in order to divert press attention from his love life.

The town's newspapers, from the Times to the Daily News to the various Breezes ALWAYS take the side of the official explanations. They may mention "animal activist" groups claim... But they almost never do any investigative reporting. They just report what each side says and you'll find the official government side has about three times as much copy as the "activist" complaints. The reporter never investigates for him or herself. They may interview a few other sources--rarely--to fill out a story, but when it comes to LAAS or County, they never request public records to investigate allegations for themselves. If they do, they are not telling us about it.

One of the few exceptions to this rule is CityBeat when it comes to LAAS. They began nailing Boks within months after he started. I wish I knew then what I know now.

The other newspapers owe their access to city hall's good graces, which disappears if a reporter criticizes a city or county operation without the Mayor or Supervisor taking the lead. AND, the mayor and supervisor will without fail stand behind the "findings" of their pretend investigations, led by their own staffers, replete with altered records.

They will not endanger their city contacts, even when they know they are lying, because they are media whores. As someone I knew in Santa Monica government said, staffers lie from top to bottom as easily as they breathe air, not because they have to, so much as it is part of the culture. It is a culture of lying just as in LA and County.

There is no such thing as reporter integrity in this town when it comes to city hall or the county, and there certainly is no investigative reporting.

The same holds true with TV news. One reporter wanted to air a story of his findings of animal neglect and overcrowding in LA's shelters. ABC management cancelled the project.

The closest you get to investiagtive reporting re LA animal issues are the blogs and some of the animal newspapers.. We may get it wrong sometimes, but that is because no one in government is sharing information. City hall and the BOS are black boxes. The only information to come out are half truths, spins and lies. Once in a while you have a whistleblower that makes change happen by providing evidence of incompetence or downright fraud.

Jim Bickhart often says get your facts straight or no one will belive you. But Jim, who is going to give us the stright facts? You; Boks chief apologist?

Look at the Mason case. He was skewered by Dana Bartholomew as well as City TV and the LAAS website. Dana claims to have written a "short" followup, but no one mentions that Mason was arrested, his cats and cages seized, 65% of the cats killed based on fraudulent evidence, and no charges ever were brought against him because there was no case. No one has told the truth about Mason. True, as a viewer claims, I never saw Dana's alleged followup either.

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