p2p news / p2pnet: “The Times has suspended Michael Hiltzik’s Golden State blog on latimes.com. Hiltzik admitted Thursday that he posted items on the paper’s website, and on other websites, under names other than his own. That is a violation of The Times ethics guidelines, which requires editors and reporters to identify themselves when dealing with the public. The policy applies to both the print and online editions of the newspaper. The Times is investigating the postings.”

The above clip from the Los Angeles Times is on Pulitzer Prize-winner Hiltzik’s LA Times Golden State site.

He’s also been an LA Times reporter for 20 years, says the Associated Press, continuing, “It wasn’t clear if the blog suspension had any impact on Hiltzik’s duties as a reporter or editor. A voicemail message left Friday for Hiltzik and an e-mail message asking for comment weren’t immediately returned.”

Interestingly, Hiltzik and Times reporter Chuck Philips won the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for a series of articles exposing entertainment industry corruption, including a payola scandal and a music industry expose on operations of the Grammy Awards organization, the nonprofit National Academy of Meanwhile, in another April 20 post slugged On Anonymity in Blogland, he writes:

“Some years ago, the New Yorker ran an amusing cartoon about one of the supposed virtues of the Internet, its anonymity. It showed two dogs in front a computer. One was saying to the other (I am working from memory), ‘On the Internet, no one knows you’re a dog.’

“The right-wing blogger Patterico has apparently worked himself into a four-star ragegasm (Tbogg’s inimitable coinage) at the notion of anonymous or pseudonymous postings on his website by me. This is amusing, because most of the comments posted on his website are anonymous or pseudonymous. ‘Patterico’ is itself a pseudonym for an Assistant Los Angeles District Attorney named Patrick Frey.

“Anonymity for commenters is a feature of his blog, as it is of mine. It’s a feature that he can withdraw from his public any time he wishes. He has chosen to do that in one case only, and we might properly ask why. The answer is that he’s ticked off that someone would disagree with him.”

The Washington Post’s Howie Kurtz explains:

“The deceptive postings grew out of a running feud between Hiltzik and conservative bloggers in Southern California. One is Hugh Hewitt, a radio talk show host and blogger. The other is an assistant Los Angeles district attorney named Patrick Frey, who maintains a blog under the name Patterico’s Pontifications.

“When commenters on Frey’s Web site criticized Hiltzik, an examination by Frey of the Internet addresses involved showed it was the Times writer who responded in remarks posted under the name ‘Mikekoshi’.

Frey wrote the, “evidence is overwhelming that he has used more than one pseudonym. Hiltzik and his pseudonymous selves have echoed each other’s arguments, praised one another, and mocked each other’s enemies. All the while, Hiltzik’s readers have been unaware that (at a minimum) the acid-tongued ‘Mikekoshi’ . . . is in fact Hiltzik himself.”

Also See:
Golden State - Notice from the Editors, April 20, 2006
Associated Press - L.A. Times suspends Golden State blog for alleged ethics violation, April 21, 2006
Washington Post - Los Angeles Times Yanks Columnist’s Blog, April 21, 2006

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