The Los Angeles Times has disciplined sock-puppeteer columnist Michael Hiltzik.
For traditional media, his crime was pseudonymous posting. That was the gist of most of the published stories about the controversy, including the initial reports in his own paper. And that got wrapped up in LAT ethics policy (”We do not misrepresent ourselves and we do […]

LA Observed is reporting:

Editors at the Los Angeles Times have stripped Michael Hiltzik of his Golden State column in the Business section and suspended him as punishment for posting anonymous arguments on his blog and those of critics. He also loses the blog and will be reassigned to unspecified duties after his suspension, via a […]

The silence from the LAT camp on the status of Michael Hiltzik is deafening.

But that hasn’t’ stopped Independent Sources from learning the top ten excuses Hiltzik is considering:
1. “NoFAnOfCableCos” is a nickname not a pseudonym.
2. Like any good reporter, I will never divulge my anonymous pseudonyms.
3. “These are not the droids we’re looking for.”
4. Robert […]

In his post last week exposing the Los Angeles Times’ Michael Hiltzik as a self promoting sock pupeteer, Patterico noted that “Mikekoshi,” one of Hiltzik’s presumed aliases, has commented at Kevin Drum’s blog at the Washington Monthly.
An interesting fact that Patterico missed: if you go to this February 2005 comment, the email address associated with […]

Hugh Hewitt points us to this Online Journalism Review interview of the Los Angeles Times’ Michael Hiltzik. The piece went up last Monday, prior to Patterico’s outing Hiltzik’s use of pseudonymous users to talk up his LAT blog.
OJR: Does your blog go through an editing process? And, if so, what’s that like?
Hiltzik: No.
OJR: No?
Hiltzik: No, […]

After visitors to Amazon.com view Michael Hiltzik’s recent book “The Plot Against Social Security : How the Bush Plan Is Endangering Our Financial Future,” what do they do?
5% buy “Unhinged: Exposing Liberals Gone Wild”

Appropriate, no? And perhaps there’s a need for a new chapter …
—
Fortunately for Hiltzik, none of the customer reviews are from mikekoshi […]

As LA Observed noted, we are not sure what to read into the absence of Michael Hiltzik’s usual business section column but it was not there this morning.

Meanwhile the Hiltzik scandal is spreading with stories in Slate, NYT, and another in Washington Post.
tags: michael hiltzik

LA Times employee follows Michael Hiltzik’s foolish footsteps and fails to erase them as well
A commenter called “Masha” left this nice message on Patterico’s blog today:
If it were up to you, I’d know nothing but your idiotic propaganda. You’re all worse than Pravda.
Guess where Masha works? Yep, the Los Angeles Times. What’s next, fish […]

Cathy Seipp is reporting in her blog that the LA Times is investigating Hiltzik’s work in general for other signs of dishonesty.
This would include is regular Business section column, which we’ve critiqued from a story selection perspective but never for ethical transgressions.
The enormously negative reaction to the revelations about Hiltzik’s actions have gotten some […]

Here (h/t: LA Observed).
But not in the LAT! Insider reports it’s on p2 of the LAT print edition front section: “They put the same text that was on the website about the blog being pulled and the investigation on page 2 of the Front page section. They did not assign a writer or add provide […]

What to do about Michael Hiltzik?
I hope that as editors at the Los Angeles Times ponder that question, they are able to isolate Hiltzik’s act from the medium, and not retreat from their (limited) efforts to a create more interactive news organization.
Hiltzik’s self-promoting pseudonymous comments crossed a line — but as his angry anti-Patterico screed […]

Does anyone else think it’s funny that Michael Hiltzik once got disciplined for logging into other people’s email accounts and reading their mail?
Patterico’s post unmasking Michael Hiltzik’s deceptive comments at Patterico’s Pontifications — and here at Independent Sources — mentioned an earlier incident where Hiltzik assumed someone else’s identity. Here’s more:
Reporter Disciplined for Reading His […]

… and it all started with a comment on this blog (here; analysis here).
With Patterico’s evidence presumably in hand, the Los Angeles Times has given Michael Hiltzik’s Golden State blog a time out:
Notice from the Editors
The Times has suspended Michael Hiltzik’s Golden State blog on latimes.com. Hiltzik admitted Thursday that he posted items on the […]

UpdateThe Los Angeles Times blog that Michael Hiltzik blogs has been taken down for violation of Times’ ethics guidelines. In part because Mr. Hiltzik did not identify himself when on Independent Sources and in fact denied being him when confronted.
Update: It is back up but without the post where he admits/defends what he did and […]

Disgruntled commenter “nofanofcablecos” thinks we violated our privacy policy when Insider surmised that he was really the Los Angeles Times‘ Michael Hiltzik.
(long post … click on “Read the rest of this entry” for the rest )

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