Kevin Roderick reports that Andres Martinez has found a job. Martinez, you will remember, resigned when the paper made a huge deal out of an alleged conflict of interest Martinez supposedly had with a guest editor for the Sunday opinion section. Many staff members went ballistic, because at the L.A. Times, they don’t tolerate conflicts of interest!
In unrelated news, L.A. Times reporter Chuck Philips has a story about Anthony Pellicano in yesterday’s paper. You may remember Philips as the guy who covered the Notorious B.I.G. civil trial, and wrote stories discrediting a witness who had previously accused Philips of a corrupt association with Suge Knight — without disclosing that the witness he was trying to discredit had accused him of corruption. This, you see, poses no conflict of interest.
So anyway, back to Chuck Philips covering Anthony Pellicano. He has an article touting a Pellicano defense tactic:
Attorneys for Anthony Pellicano are mounting a new legal attack to strip the prosecution of its most potent evidence, contending that an FBI agent concealed information and then lied about it to convince a judge to let him search the Hollywood private eye’s office.
For some reason, I was reminded of a Nikki Finke post from March which said:
I reported back on January 16th that indicted and imprisoned Hollywood P.I. Anthony Pellicano and ex-wife Kat Pellicano, who divorced in 2002 after an 18-year marriage, were going to re-marry. Well, they tied the knot on Friday. A source tells me that several journalists were at the magistrate’s court, including People magazine’s Frank Swertlow and the Los Angeles Times’ Chuck Phillips. “Phillips [who] is the guy Pellicano calls every time he sneezes was not only there but the ONLY journalist there not taking notes. Finally, Pellicano said hello only to two journalists there, Frank Swertlow and Chuck Phillips. In fact, Phillips and Pellicano saluted and smiled to each other.”
To recap:
Philips discrediting a witness who has accused him of corruption: no conflict.
Philips touting the defense arguments of Pellicano, whose wedding he attended, at which Philips and Pellicano saluted one another: no conflict.
Andres Martinez causing appearance problems for the L.A. Times by sleeping with a flack for a firm which represented a producer getting a one-time guest editor spot: CONFLICT! ALL HELL BREAKS LOOSE!