Time for Phillips and his editor to be fired.

“I’m not going to write it just because someone says it,” he said. “I have to, in my mind, have double- or triple-sourcing on something and people who hadn’t spoken to each other and I can assure myself that they haven’t spoken to each other.”

Ummm, he certainly didn’t do that “double- or triple-sourcing” when it came to the FBI documents. By the LA Times’ own account:

Philips said he sought to check the authenticity of the documents with the U.S. attorney’s office in New York, which had handled the investigation of the attack on Shakur, and with a retired FBI agent, but did not directly ask the FBI about them. The U.S. attorney’s office declined to comment, while the former FBI agent said the documents appeared legitimate, Philips said.

So, Philips doesn’t bother to call the FBI, gets no comment from the U.S. attorney’s office, and a single retired FBI guy says the documents “appeared legitimate.” And that was enough to pin an entire story on? Wow. Just … wow.

Yet that good will is largely destroyed by the refusal of Philips or the LA Times to reveal their sources — both the source of the phony FBI reports and the “corroborators” in the poke.

I’ve been a newspaper reporter for 16 years. I’ve used the occassional anonymous source. Sometimes it’s the only way a reporter can get the truth out to the public. But an anonymous source, in my book, forfeits his cover when he lies. It is amazing that the LA Times is still protecting these anonymous sources.

Perhaps Philips and the paper won’t out these frauds because public exposure could put them in physical danger (though that didn’t seem to stop Philips before). More likely, I think, is that Philips has fudged to his editors about exactly how many sources he had. My bet? Philips’ source is singular: The Phraudulent Phat Boy Jimmy Sabatino.

Let’s also not let pass the extraordinary journalistic event that has transpired here. It is a very rare thing for a newspaper to retract a story. The Times went beyond that. It issued an apology — and on the front page. No doubt, that is an attempt to undermine the “malicious intent” threshhold for the enormous libel suit that Sean Combs’ lawyers promised in the story.

This whole thing stinks to high heaven. And I kept waiting for the line in the story that noted how Philips was put on “administrative leave” until the investigation is completed. Apparently, his Pulitzer is shielding him from the dire professional consequences he deserves. For now, at least.

It looked at it about 6 months ago, but let it drop it under the press of business. Give me a couple hours and I’ll go back through what I had before.