Speaker 1: As an investigative reporter, every story for be your loss.
Speaker 1: If something goes wrong, that's not just on you, It's
Speaker 1: not just on the reporter. It can embarrass the paper.
Speaker 2: That's Jack Leonard, Senior investigations editor for the La Times.
Speaker 2: Jack started at The Times as a reporter and his
Speaker 2: stories of exposed fraud in the California conservativeship system, abuse
Speaker 2: in LA's jails, and corruption at the highest levels of
Speaker 2: the La County Sheriff's Department. Jack knows that whenever a
Speaker 2: newspaper decides to take on powerful people institutions, there's some
Speaker 2: risk involved.
Speaker 1: You need a strong stomach for that kind of reporter,
Speaker 1: and you need a strong stomach for that kind of editing.
Speaker 2: I've been working on the Puliafido story for a few weeks.
Speaker 2: When I stopped by Jack's desk, I told him how
Speaker 2: the dean of USC's medical school had been at the
Speaker 2: scene of the overdose of a young woman who tried
Speaker 2: to stop someone from calling paramedics, fled to the nine
Speaker 2: to one to one dispatcher, and then abruptly stepped down
Speaker 2: as dean, and how the cops had done nothing and
Speaker 2: no one at USC would talk. My reporting was rock solid.
Speaker 2: It was going to be a good piece, the kind
Speaker 2: of story that would hold Puliafido USC and the Pasadena
Speaker 2: police accountable. Jack hears me out, and then he.
Speaker 1: Says, what makes you think they could have published that?
Speaker 2: He's talking about our editors, the two people at the
Speaker 2: top of the mast hit at the La Times. Is
Speaker 2: it possible that my own newspaper might not have the
Speaker 2: stomach for this story? And if not, why? My name
Speaker 2: is Paul Pringle. I'm an investigative reporter at the La Times.
Speaker 2: And this is Fallen Angels, episode three. Company Men. I'd
Speaker 2: first heard about the incident at the Hotel Constance in
Speaker 2: Pasadena from a whistleblower named Devon Khan who worked at
Speaker 2: the hotel. Since then, I've gotten the hold of police records,
Speaker 2: of nine to one one recordings. They confirmed what Devon
Speaker 2: told me. You could hear the nine to one one
Speaker 2: dispatcher asked Pulliafido about the woman's condition, even though she's
Speaker 2: unconscious odeed on drugs.
Speaker 3: Pulliffido lies would.
Speaker 4: Take anythingales with it or just the alcohol, just the alcohol.
Speaker 3: The woman was rushed to the hospital.
Speaker 2: The police found drugs in the room, but Pulliafido wasn't
Speaker 2: arrested and the passing the police didn't even file a report.
Speaker 2: So Devon called the office of the USC president. He
Speaker 2: told the staff everything he knew, but when us he
Speaker 2: put out a press release, all it said was that
Speaker 2: Pulliafido was stepping down to quote pursue other opportunities. So, yes,
Speaker 2: it's an important story, but Jack seems to think the
Speaker 2: top two editors at the La Times won't be in
Speaker 2: a hurry to publish it.
Speaker 5: The printed paper is going to be something that it
Speaker 5: would have more contexts and more analysis and more perspective
Speaker 5: to survive. The web would be a place where you
Speaker 5: can find immediacy and breaking news.
Speaker 2: That's Davon Maharaz, the editor in chief of the La Times,
Speaker 2: where I work. He's given an interview about the challenges
Speaker 2: of our business to a leading Italian press organization. Davon
Speaker 2: came to the La Times in nineteen eighty nine as
Speaker 2: a summer intern, worked his way up and became editor
Speaker 2: in chief in twenty eleven. He and I got along
Speaker 2: when he was managing editor. He'd fight for my stories.
Speaker 2: I thought he was smart and a little edgy, but
Speaker 2: since he became editor in chief, I felt like Davon,
Speaker 2: had less of an appetite for investigative reporting. Jack Leonard says,
Speaker 2: I'm not alone in that.
Speaker 1: There was a feeling that the stories weren't just being vetted,
Speaker 1: some of them were being slow walked. As an editor,
Speaker 1: I think a lot of reporters want their stories vetted,
Speaker 1: but they want them to also get into the paper.
Speaker 2: Matt Late, the editor I'm working with on the Pullia
Speaker 2: Fido story, had found this out up the hard way
Speaker 2: when he and his reporters investigated Purdue Pharma, makers of
Speaker 2: oxy Contin, the painkiller fuel in America's opioid epidemic. It
Speaker 2: was an explosive story, one that could save lives, but
Speaker 2: it hit a wall once it got to Davon and
Speaker 2: his managing editor, Mark Duvison.
Speaker 3: There were delays.
Speaker 6: After delays, it was difficult to get engagement from the
Speaker 6: top leadership about what they would want out of a
Speaker 6: draft or a story. I felt there was problems communicating
Speaker 6: that or articulating why a story wasn't ready for publication.
Speaker 6: It felt like there was a reluctance to take on
Speaker 6: these topics.
Speaker 2: Matt was working with two fine reporters, Scott Glover and
Speaker 2: Lisa Garrion that he brought in another standout on the staff,
Speaker 2: Harriet Ryan, to help.
Speaker 4: My editor at the time was Matt Lee. He came
Speaker 4: to me and said, like, look, I need you gi
Speaker 4: me a favor. These two reporters have been working on
Speaker 4: this series about oxycon and that they need a little
Speaker 4: help and just structuring the narrative should take like a
Speaker 4: couple months. All the evidence was there, but they just
Speaker 4: tortured these reporters waiting and then waiting for feedback on
Speaker 4: drafts that they clearly hadn't read. There was nothing wrong
Speaker 4: with these stories. They were ready to go in the paper.
Speaker 4: I still struggle to understand why two of our best
Speaker 4: reporters were treated with so much disrespect, and I ended
Speaker 4: up taking like years and both of them quit in
Speaker 4: frustration at the way things unfolded. By the end, it
Speaker 4: was just me alone and Matt Lee trying to get
Speaker 4: these stories done. My anxiety was so severe that I
Speaker 4: had liked I would at times lose feeling in my
Speaker 4: arms from stress.
Speaker 2: The series was finally published in May of twenty sixteen,
Speaker 2: and it led to a major federal investigation into Purdue Pharma.
Speaker 2: It's the kind of impact newspaper editors dream about. So
Speaker 2: why had Davon been so slow to publish and why
Speaker 2: did Jack Leonard think my PULLI a feto story might
Speaker 2: not even see the light of day. There's an important
Speaker 2: detail about Davon Maharaj and his job at the Only
Speaker 2: Times that I haven't mentioned yet. He's not just the
Speaker 2: editor in chief, he's also the publisher. This is not typical,
Speaker 2: and there's a reason for that. The editor in chief
Speaker 2: just needs to care about journalism, good stories, accurate reporting,
Speaker 2: impact like holding pro due pharma to account. Publishers have
Speaker 2: other things to worry about. Joe Pompeii was a media
Speaker 2: correspondent for Vanity Fair.
Speaker 7: Typically, the publisher that means the business side, and this
Speaker 7: is the person that is responsible for the revenue, for
Speaker 7: the money that the place is making and how it's
Speaker 7: going to make money. And historically, in newspapers or news
Speaker 7: organizations in general, there's a very firm firewall between the
Speaker 7: business side and the journalism of the place. If you
Speaker 7: have a publisher who is particularly engaged in edutorial decisions
Speaker 7: that could theoretically influence coverage or how certain stories are
Speaker 7: told based on not wanting to offend advertisers or ruffel feathers.
Speaker 2: So Devon, in his two sided job, has to decide
Speaker 2: which stories are up to the Times journalistic standards, and
Speaker 2: he also has to keep the place afloat financially, and
Speaker 2: in twenty sixteen, that's not easy.
Speaker 3: The Times is a mess.
Speaker 7: The Los Angeles Times was one of the great national
Speaker 7: newspapers of America for a large part of its history.
Speaker 7: It was found even the late eighteen hundreds, and for
Speaker 7: most of its history was controlled by the same family.
Speaker 7: This is the Chandlers of Los Angeles, who was one
Speaker 7: of the great newspaper dynasties of the twentieth century. This
Speaker 7: is a paper that has robust bureaus all over the place,
Speaker 7: a pretty significant force in the journalism landscape. That began
Speaker 7: to change in the mid two thousands as the Los
Speaker 7: Angeles Times and print media everywhere began to really experience
Speaker 7: some of the pressures that were coming to bear with
Speaker 7: the rise of digital media. The revenue models that print
Speaker 7: newspapers had long relied on, which would have been print
Speaker 7: based advertising, that became a much trickier proposition. Newsrooms have
Speaker 7: to start getting rid of reporters and editors, and many
Speaker 7: newsrooms they have a thousand journalists, suddenly they have half that,
Speaker 7: and the La Times certainly experienced a very very sharp
Speaker 7: decrease in its manpower. A lot of people would point
Speaker 7: to two thousand and seven as the beginning of the
Speaker 7: end for the La Times. This is the year that Samzel,
Speaker 7: the billionaire real estate investor.
Speaker 3: Took over.
Speaker 2: Samzel is the Chicago based billionaire after you bought Tribune
Speaker 2: and the company that owned the Only Times, he came
Speaker 2: in hard. You can get a sense of Zell's leadership
Speaker 2: style from this meeting in two thousand and eight, when
Speaker 2: he dressed down a group of Tribune journalists who were
Speaker 2: nervous about his takeover.
Speaker 8: You're giving me the classic what I would call journalistic
Speaker 8: arrogance of deciding that puppies don't comes.
Speaker 3: What I'm interested in.
Speaker 8: Is how can we generate additional interest in our product,
Speaker 8: in additional revenue, so we can make our product better
Speaker 8: and better.
Speaker 2: Some might say that Zella is a realist. In this
Speaker 2: new age of digital journalism, newspapers need clicks because clicks
Speaker 2: are the new currency, and this is a business. Puppies
Speaker 2: get clicks. But as it turned out, puppies weren't the
Speaker 2: answer either he.
Speaker 7: Bought out the Tribune Company, took it private, and in
Speaker 7: doing so a trude a lot of debt. Within a
Speaker 7: year under the reign of of Sam Zell's Tribune Company,
Speaker 7: the company declared bankruptcy. From there, you know, they've kind
Speaker 7: of just had a succession of bad managers and owners
Speaker 7: running the place. Eventually it becomes this company called Trunk.
Speaker 7: Tribune Company becomes Trunk Trunk. We're a long way from
Speaker 7: the Chandler family. Another rich Chicagoan tech entrepreneur, Michael Ferrell,
Speaker 7: was the biggest shareholder in this new conglomerate. Like Zell,
Speaker 7: he's also considered a disaster for the La Times. This
Speaker 7: one reporter I talked to when I was reporting on
Speaker 7: this turmoil said to me, we just had an unbelievable
Speaker 7: string of assholes running the place.
Speaker 3: Harriet Ryan started at The Times in two thousand and eight.
Speaker 4: My first week at the paper, they were a bunch
Speaker 4: of layoffs and the guy sitting across from me got
Speaker 4: laid off and I had just been hired, and like,
Speaker 4: I ended up going to his like it was like
Speaker 4: a mass layoff. So there's sort of this like cake
Speaker 4: and like juice thing, and it was like my first week.
Speaker 3: On the job.
Speaker 2: Years of digital disruption, bad management, and budget cuts have
Speaker 2: taken a toll. By the time I'm reporting to pull
Speaker 2: your fetal story in twenty sixteen, two thirds of the
Speaker 2: newsroom is gone. I'm juggling three other investigations. Trunk management
Speaker 2: has eliminated the publisher's job and rolled it in with
Speaker 2: the editor in chief position. They either don't appreciate the
Speaker 2: potential conflicts that might create, or they don't care. Editor
Speaker 2: Matt Leae could see that Davon and the other top
Speaker 2: editors had their work cut out for them.
Speaker 3: They were in a difficult position. They had tough jobs.
Speaker 6: They were dealing routinely with new bosses, new ownership folks
Speaker 6: that didn't really understand the industry. They were dealing with
Speaker 6: the other problems that the industry was facing, which was.
Speaker 3: A lack of revenue.
Speaker 6: I think they wanted to value investigative reporting, they actually
Speaker 6: created an environment that made it very difficult to produce
Speaker 6: them to gated reporting.
Speaker 3: Reporter Harriet Ryan is more direct.
Speaker 4: You know, we're not in the gold Nada journalism. I'm
Speaker 4: sure they aren't under tons of pressure, but honestly, I
Speaker 4: see it as a character issue a lack of character,
Speaker 4: almost like just pathological narcissism.
Speaker 2: Davon Maharaj and Mark Duvison deny that they did anything
Speaker 2: wrong in their handling of the USC investigation, and they
Speaker 2: maintained that any negative betrayal of their actions is false.
Speaker 2: Matt and I go over my draft to the Pullio
Speaker 2: Fido story, and then he sends it to California editor
Speaker 2: Shelby grad Shelby does an edit and sends the story
Speaker 2: along to his boss, Mark Duvson.
Speaker 1: Mark is a very complicated character. He's a very, very
Speaker 1: precise editor. He really gets in the weeds editor Jack Leonard.
Speaker 1: In fact, I worked on a project that was more
Speaker 1: than three years in the making, but for Mark it
Speaker 1: would not have run.
Speaker 3: But this was years ago.
Speaker 1: This was back in two thousand and five.
Speaker 2: Mark and I had joined the La Times around the
Speaker 2: same time in two thousand and one. He seemed like
Speaker 2: someone with a lot of ambition. That got him the
Speaker 2: promotion to manage an editor second in command of Davon.
Speaker 2: After that, the problem with investigative stories got much worse.
Speaker 1: He seems to have got a little bit of gunshy.
Speaker 1: Since then, as you move up, the responsibility has become more.
Speaker 1: If something goes wrong with a story, it's on you.
Speaker 2: One of Mark's first edits is to delete the line
Speaker 2: that calls the story at times investigation. He tells me
Speaker 2: that implies quote wrongdoing by USC. I'm stunned. The story
Speaker 2: doesn't imply anything. It's a factual report of our investigation.
Speaker 2: Matt and I argue with him about it, but he
Speaker 2: doesn't budge. Then he spends weeks making cosmetic changes. He
Speaker 2: tinkers and doddles, but he doesn't challenge any of the
Speaker 2: reporting because it's solid. Still, he's in no hurry to publish.
Speaker 2: Mark says I should visit Puliafido, and one of the
Speaker 2: Pasadena police officers at their homes to get an interview.
Speaker 2: I told him I've already tried that a few times.
Speaker 2: One place I haven't tried door knocking. He's the home
Speaker 2: of USC President Max Nikias.
Speaker 1: In the case of someone like the president of USC,
Speaker 1: it's quite possible that Paul's messages so far have not
Speaker 1: got to him. It's quite possible that the pr people
Speaker 1: who are handling Paul's questions have not told Max Nikias
Speaker 1: about them. So as a reporter, you fear that the
Speaker 1: person you're writing about doesn't know what you're writing about.
Speaker 1: Taking that one last step going out to the home
Speaker 1: asking to talk to him, that is very important.
Speaker 4: If someone has a press office, of course you go
Speaker 4: through the press office to try to talk to them,
Speaker 4: but then like when they don't respond or if they
Speaker 4: respond with the blase statement, that's not the end of
Speaker 4: it for an investigative reporter. And then you text them
Speaker 4: and you call them, then you go.
Speaker 3: To their house.
Speaker 2: Mark absolutely does not want me to doorknock Max Tikias.
Speaker 3: I can't believe it. If anything, Mark ought to be demanding.
Speaker 2: I pay Nikias a visit Matt late and I decide
Speaker 2: I'm going to Nikias's house that weekend.
Speaker 3: Anyway, he lets Mark know what we're planning to do.
Speaker 2: Someone tells me later that when Mark got the news,
Speaker 2: he slammed his hand down on his desk and barked no.
Speaker 2: He then fires off an email saying I am not
Speaker 2: to visit the president's home without first clearing it with him, but.
Speaker 3: I'm going no matter what.
Speaker 2: San Marino was a talent of about twelve thousand people
Speaker 2: on the border of Pasadena. It's one of the wealthiest
Speaker 2: zip codes in the country. The USC President's mansion, where
Speaker 2: Nikias lives is worth about twenty five million dollars. I'm
Speaker 2: hoping he's home and I can persuade him to speak
Speaker 2: to me about Puliafido. But in case he won't, I've
Speaker 2: written him a note asking for an interview or even
Speaker 2: a confidential conversation of out the incident at the hotel Continence.
Speaker 2: I drive out there just after sunset in the rain
Speaker 2: and park across from the gated driveway.
Speaker 3: I press the intercom on the gate. No answer.
Speaker 2: I try again. This time someone answers, but hangs up
Speaker 2: on me when I identify myself. I'm just about to
Speaker 2: leave when a car pulls up in the driveway. It
Speaker 2: looks like a Mercedes. The Kias's wife is driving and
Speaker 2: she's alone. I introduced myself and hand her the note,
Speaker 2: which he accepts silently, holding it like it's a dirty napkin.
Speaker 3: She drives on and the gate closes.
Speaker 2: I'm not surprised that I don't hear from the Kias,
Speaker 2: but I do hear from Matt Late that the USC
Speaker 2: administration has complained to Davon about my visit Jack Leonard.
Speaker 1: The sources often complain about what we do. But that's
Speaker 1: just standard journalism practices. It's just basic journalism. To go out,
Speaker 1: I think you can complain away. I recall hearing from
Speaker 1: a couple of editors at the time that Mark didn't
Speaker 1: want him to go out and do a knock. He
Speaker 1: was unhappy when he heard that he had.
Speaker 2: But at that moment I couldn't care less because after
Speaker 2: months of nitpicking and delays, the editors say the story
Speaker 2: will run. The Times is planning to publish the story
Speaker 2: as a multimedia package with the police report and other records,
Speaker 2: photos and.
Speaker 3: A nine to one to one recordings. It's ironclad.
Speaker 2: But then I get an email from Mark who says
Speaker 2: Davon wants to sleep on it. I can't believe it.
Speaker 2: Sleep on what The story is ready to go. The
Speaker 2: next day, Mark asked me to meet with him and Davon.
Speaker 2: Matt's not invited, but I insisted he come too. The
Speaker 2: editor's offices at the La Times have glass walls that
Speaker 2: look out on the newsroom. We like to call them
Speaker 2: the glass holes. Matt and I sit across from days
Speaker 2: on a Mark and after months of investigation and vetting
Speaker 2: and editing, Davon tells us his decision. We're not going
Speaker 2: to publish his story, he says, and rather than offer
Speaker 2: any coherent reason, he makes it personal.
Speaker 6: I recall the paper's top editor bringing up stuff that
Speaker 6: was totally irrelevant, stuff about how Paul was given time
Speaker 6: to recover from a knee surgery, how he'd had other
Speaker 6: time off to deal with other family issues. It made
Speaker 6: no sense to me, like, why are we getting into
Speaker 6: these issues. This meeting should be about what a great
Speaker 6: story we have here and how can we get this
Speaker 6: into the paper. I understand that well meaning journalists can
Speaker 6: differ over what is needed in order to publish a story,
Speaker 6: but generally that disagreement comes with a good discussion of
Speaker 6: how to get it done. That wasn't done here. We
Speaker 6: were given a dismissive response. The papers top editor actually
Speaker 6: even suggested other stories for Paul to pursue. We were
Speaker 6: told that while he wasn't closing the door to more report,
Speaker 6: the definite message was he was not encouraging it. I
Speaker 6: found that difficult to comprehend. If you didn't think it
Speaker 6: was ready to be published, work with us and tell
Speaker 6: us what's needed.
Speaker 3: The response from the paper's.
Speaker 6: Top leadership to that story was stunning. And journalistically disheartening.
Speaker 6: The tone and tenor of that meeting was that we
Speaker 6: were being discouraged from pursuing a story of significant public interest,
Speaker 6: a story that the managing editor and the paper's lawyer
Speaker 6: not twenty four hours earlier, had approved for publication.
Speaker 3: I'm furious and I'm not quiet about it.
Speaker 1: I remember Paul calling me and telling me that the
Speaker 1: story had been killed, and I can still remember how
Speaker 1: angry he was about it. I talked to Matt at
Speaker 1: the time, too, and he was also very upset about
Speaker 1: what happened.
Speaker 2: I think back to the letter ni Kis's office sent Davon.
Speaker 2: I went to the house in San Marino, and I
Speaker 2: wonder what did it say.
Speaker 9: As you may know, President Nikias is traveling out of town.
Speaker 9: He has posted from his trip on his Instagram account.
Speaker 9: Last night, Pringle, who follows doctor Nikias on Instagram, showed
Speaker 9: up at the Nikias residence after dark and asked missus
Speaker 9: Nikkeis to deliver an envelope enclosed, unopened, to her husband.
Speaker 9: When Doctor Nikias called me last night to let me
Speaker 9: know what had happened, I assured him I would deliver
Speaker 9: the envelope to you and express our profound disappointment in
Speaker 9: the situation. Needless to say, Pringle has again crossed the line.
Speaker 9: We understand he is doing his job, but we also
Speaker 9: expect a degree of respect and professionalism between our organizations.
Speaker 10: Thank you.
Speaker 3: That's our producer.
Speaker 2: Read the letter from Max Dakias's team to Davon Maharaj,
Speaker 2: editor in chief and published of The La Times. I
Speaker 2: wrote to Mark demanding to see it, and he handed
Speaker 2: it over. From the sound of it, this isn't the
Speaker 2: first time USC brass have complained to Davon about me.
Speaker 2: It also seems clear that the Kisses people expect to
Speaker 2: be treated in a certain way by the editor and
Speaker 2: publisher of the La Times.
Speaker 11: Welcome to the sixteenth annual La Times Festival of Books,
Speaker 11: and the very first one to be held at the
Speaker 11: University of Southern California.
Speaker 3: I'm so proud that.
Speaker 11: The nation's largest public literary festival has found a home
Speaker 11: at one of America's leading private research universities. The Los
Speaker 11: Angeles Times Festival of Books is officially open at USC.
Speaker 3: Times.
Speaker 2: Festival of Books is the largest book festival in the
Speaker 2: United States. One hundred and fifty thousand people attend every year.
Speaker 2: There's lots of fanfare around it, as you hear from
Speaker 2: that USC promo video. In twenty ten, the year Nikia
Speaker 2: has got the top job, the Times moved the festival
Speaker 2: to USC from UCLA.
Speaker 3: It was a coup for the new president.
Speaker 1: The fact that we had this Festival of books with them.
Speaker 1: It did raise some questions in the newsroom as to
Speaker 1: what our ties are, how close are our ties with USC.
Speaker 1: As a newspaper, you have to be independent. You've got
Speaker 1: to be careful of these sort of links.
Speaker 2: But the Festival of Books is just the most recent
Speaker 2: of these sorts of links. For years, USC's journalism school
Speaker 2: has been a comfortable landing spot for editors and other
Speaker 2: staffers who have left The Times. Matt Lay teaches there,
Speaker 2: like a lot of reporters and editors have over the years.
Speaker 6: I know a number of folks in the newsroom taught
Speaker 6: at USC, like myself. I was assigned a class to
Speaker 6: teach investigator reporting, and then if I taught that with
Speaker 6: another reporter.
Speaker 3: And some of our best hires came from USC too.
Speaker 1: I went to USC, I went to their grad school.
Speaker 1: I have a lot of love for USC because I
Speaker 1: feel like it gave me the skills to get a
Speaker 1: job at the La Times.
Speaker 2: But I do wonder, with all the trouble in the
Speaker 2: news business, if Davon and Mark might have one eye
Speaker 2: on their next act. I remember talking to Mark about
Speaker 2: potential layoffs, and he'd said that USC could be a
Speaker 2: good option for both of us. Davon once praised USC
Speaker 2: and the Key Is to me so passionately that it
Speaker 2: made me think he'd fit right in there.
Speaker 1: Paul was livid. I mean, he was furious at what
Speaker 1: was going on, and he believed that the paper was
Speaker 1: in the bag for USC, and he would talk a
Speaker 1: lot about the importance of actually holding USC accountable given
Speaker 1: its stature in the local community. I was also hearing
Speaker 1: at the time from Matt Lake a similar story.
Speaker 6: I was in this, I guess, defiant and kind of
Speaker 6: clung to the idea that Davon said he wasn't closing
Speaker 6: the door to more reporting. There were several ways I
Speaker 6: think that we could go about it. One was getting
Speaker 6: some information from USC as to why the dean left
Speaker 6: the university. We could get some additional information from Pasadena.
Speaker 6: We could get information from the woman who overdosed.
Speaker 2: Even if Davon wasn't serious about reviving a story with
Speaker 2: more reporting.
Speaker 3: Matt decides, that's exactly what we're going to do.
Speaker 6: I recall going into my boss's office, who was the
Speaker 6: Metro editor, Shelby Grad, and explaining to him what had happened.
Speaker 6: I talked to Shelby about this, and he was encouraging
Speaker 6: of the idea, and we decided to add several more
Speaker 6: reporters to this effort.
Speaker 3: We quietly hand pick a team.
Speaker 6: I had worked most closely with Harriet Ryan. I think
Speaker 6: she's perhaps one of the best journalists in the country.
Speaker 6: She did tremendous work on that pretty Pharma story, and
Speaker 6: not only is she an incredible report of that, she's
Speaker 6: just an incredibly gifted writer as well.
Speaker 4: I knew that Paul was a really quality reporter, and
Speaker 4: I trusted Matt implicitly, so like of.
Speaker 2: Course, Next is Adam Elmark, thirty two years old. He's
Speaker 2: been at the paper for about eight months.
Speaker 10: I was working for a nonprofit called Voice of OC
Speaker 10: at the time. We were focused really mainly on covering
Speaker 10: local government. I was really focused on accountability reporting. I'm
Speaker 10: covering secrets at city halls. I started to catch the
Speaker 10: La Times's attention because I was just getting a lot
Speaker 10: of good investigative accountability, sort of scoops. I got hired
Speaker 10: in July of twenty sixteen, and we started working on
Speaker 10: this story in February of twenty seventeen.
Speaker 2: Adam's desk is next to mine. We got to know
Speaker 2: each other and I'd come to respect his reporting. Our
Speaker 2: next two picks are young reporters, both graduates of USC's
Speaker 2: master's program in journalism. One is Matt Hamilton.
Speaker 12: My first professor was an La Times courts editor at
Speaker 12: the time, Jack Leonard.
Speaker 3: We really connected.
Speaker 12: I got a job as an intern for the La
Speaker 12: Times in twenty thirteen. When a job opened up at
Speaker 12: the La Times, I applied.
Speaker 2: I didn't know Matt that well, but I've been impressed
Speaker 2: with his work on stories about the San Bernardino terrorist attack,
Speaker 2: which had won The Times a Politzer Prize. The final
Speaker 2: member of the team is Sarah Parvini. Sarah had worked
Speaker 2: with Matt on those San Bernardino stories.
Speaker 13: There was definitely, at least for me starting so young
Speaker 13: coming to the La Times, that aspect of it being
Speaker 13: a dream come true for a Southern California native.
Speaker 2: Matt and Sarah might be greener, but they're sourceful, tenacious,
Speaker 2: good reporters.
Speaker 12: I'm good at pun court records, I'm good at doing interviews.
Speaker 12: I can write a solid story, but I didn't have
Speaker 12: the level of experience of Paul or Harriet or Adam.
Speaker 12: Sarah and I were a year part of USC, so
Speaker 12: I think we were in the same boat, and we
Speaker 12: had done similar internships before arriving at the paper. It
Speaker 12: was like being like going from TRIPAA.
Speaker 3: To the major leagues.
Speaker 2: We've just formed a secret reporting team out of sight
Speaker 2: of the top editors of the La Times. Me, my
Speaker 2: editor Matt Late, and four reporters, all very different.
Speaker 4: I remember being in the conference room and that had
Speaker 4: sort of said like, look, we're going to do this thing.
Speaker 4: I was going to keep it on the down low.
Speaker 12: It was a motley crew of people on this team,
Speaker 12: you know, different ages, different genders, different perspectives, different skill sets.
Speaker 2: Together, we're going to find out the truth about Puliafido
Speaker 2: and whatever USC is trying to cover up, and we're
Speaker 2: going to make sure the story gets out there no
Speaker 2: matter what our bosses have told us. Next time on
Speaker 2: Fallen Angels.
Speaker 10: Why are we wanting to participate in some sort of
Speaker 10: secret rebellion that's going to the boat. This is really
Speaker 10: what you want to be doing.
Speaker 2: The secret reporting team uncovers unexpected connections from an unlikely source.
Speaker 1: I remember just.
Speaker 13: Being shocked that Kyle Wood evens with us.
Speaker 10: He would make sort of ominous kind of remarks. He
Speaker 10: would say, Carmen's evil, that the guy is really bad guy.
Speaker 2: And we start to peel back the layers on who
Speaker 2: Carmen Puliafido really is.
Speaker 10: The medical school dean at usc was leading a secret
Speaker 10: double life.
Speaker 3: That's next time on Fallen Angels.
Speaker 2: Fallen Angels, The Story of California Corruption is a production
Speaker 2: of iHeart Podcasts in partnership with Best Case Studios.
Speaker 3: I'm Paul Pringle.
Speaker 2: This show is based on my book Bad City, Peril
Speaker 2: and Power in the City of Angels. Fallen Angels was
Speaker 2: written by Isabel Evans, Adam Pinks, and Brent Katz. Isabel
Speaker 2: Evans is our producer Brent Katz his co producer. Associate
Speaker 2: producers are Hannah Leebowitz Lockhart and On Pajo Locke. Executive
Speaker 2: producers are me, Paul Pringle, Joe Piccarello, and Adam Pinkus
Speaker 2: for Best Case Studios.
Speaker 3: Original music is by James Newberry.
Speaker 2: This episode was edited by Daniel Turik with assistants from
Speaker 2: Max Michael Miller. Additional editings, sound design, and additional music
Speaker 2: by Dean White.
Speaker 3: Harriet Ryan, Matt.
Speaker 2: Hamilton, Sarah Parvini, and Adam Olmaik are consulting producers. Our
Speaker 2: iHeart team is Ali Perry and Carl Ketel. Follow and
Speaker 2: rate Fallen Angels wherever you get your podcasts