Comments at LAT site: brutal

1. Everyone makes mistakes. I have read many of Chuck Phillip's pieces and they are good pieces to read. As an avid LA Times reader, I do not find this to be of great deal, but be careful in your future projects Chuck. Great reporting from all LA Times staff, keep it up!

2. It's the LA TIMES! Did you expect anything other than crap reporting? Look, this could easily have gotten Combs killed, but does the LA TIMES care? Are you kidding me---it's THE LA TIMES!

3. The LAT's use of anonymous sources has always been atrocious. Puffy has the means to fight back. Other people are met with arrogance when they try to complain about being smeared by ghosts. I don't care if the reporter has won the Nobel Peace Prize. He and his editor, and I use the title loosely, should be fired today.

4. Amazing how much the Wire nailed the current state of affairs at the LA Times.

5. Has journalistic integrity at major metropolitan dailies suffered so much that the author and editor were not compelled (Pulitzer or not) to fall on their swords immediately for this gaffe? An apology isn't enough at this point to make the Times not seem like a third-rate rag at this point. Perhaps after all of the lawsuits and settlements the Times will endure as the blowback from this article, it will be staffed merely by bloggers who won't need to be accountable for veracity before putting their articles on line. What a waste.

6. Chuck Phillips' story is yet another in a succession of all-too-many low points in recent years for the once well-respected newspaper that I grew up with, and have continued to read for nearly fifty years. Is it any surprise that this is what happens when the shareholder-driven management forces out a series of experienced editors (i.e. the ones who realize all of the recent layoffs are debilitatiting if not suicidal to the journalistic well-being of the newsroom), and finally cannot hire anyone with the necessary credentials willing to take this now crappy job for fear of having to implement yet another round of downsizing.

7. I cannot express my disgust at discovering how you got your fingers burned in another rehashing of a decade-old shooting. That's what you get for giving us distractions instead of real news to read. Now let's see what Chuck Phillips can do ripping the truth about who kidnapped Aimee Semple McPherson from Venice Beach, and who really murdered Elizabeth Short in the Black Dahlia case.