Exclusives

“What is the ethical question for any newspaper when a long time news source turns out to be a criminal…..?”

- Anita Busch following the Pellicano verdict

Hollywood’s big wigs held their collective breath during the sordid, long running trial of the Private-Eye-to-the-Stars, Anthony Pellicano.

So many of them had hired Pellicano over the years that they were sweating bullets, worried that their names or their company’s names, might come up in court. Most of those most-worried honchos are connected to either the big Hollywood studios or are part of L.A.’s vast entertainment law community. None wanted their names mentioned in the same sentence with terms like: illegal wiretaps, pay-offs, intimidation tactics, back-door deals.

Now, the Los Angeles Times is called on the carpet in this smarmy scandal. [click to continue...]

Good journalism is a lot like good police work. It takes a lot of digging and talking and research to learn all sides of a story on your way to the truth. Sometimes it turns out both sides in a battle are kind of slimy. Much less often you wrap up your investigation with a clear cut view of good and evil, right and wrong.

This is what brings me to write again about the movie “American Gangster.” I’m sorry, I just can’t let go.

At the end of the film there is a legend card proclaiming that because notorious Harlem based heroin dealer Frank Lucas flipped and cooperated with authorities his testimony, “Led to the convictions of three quarters of New York City’s Drug Enforcement Agency.” That is a lie – a dishonorable lie. Not one officer was ever charged with, let alone convicted, of any crime in connection with the lengthy Lucas investigation. [click to continue...]

Did NBC-Universal Use Dateline To Protect a Movie’s Bottom Line?

How many times have you gone to a movie that promotes itself as being “Based on a true story.” Somewhere in your brain it likely registers that you are about to see a movie about something that really happened. Oh, maybe a name is changed or a location or some minor few facts are a bit out of whack – but you figure the storyline is basically true. Right?

Wrong. It’s really an insipid motto: “Based on a true story”. What filmmakers are really telling you is that the story is false. They use the ‘true story’ hook line to get you into the theater seats and to remove any possible liability from their backs.

In the case of the movie ‘American Gangster’ Universal Studios appears to have taken this to an extreme. They bill it as, “The true juggernaut success story of a cult figure from the streets.” Not only were major truths withheld from the story line but if what I’m hearing behind the scenes from the very law enforcement officers depicted in the film, the directors and producers may have deliberately decided to twist the truth to show the bad guy was good and the good guys were really corrupt. And, these sources contend the deception may not have stopped at the studio doors – it may have involved a major television news department as well. [click to continue...]