Patterico's Pontifications

7/28/2015

Ted Rall Dumped by L.A. Times for Dishonesty

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 1:17 pm



Well, it’s not like I didn’t tell them, repeatedly.

FOR THE RECORD

In a May 11 post on The Times’ OpinionLA blog, Ted Rall — a freelance cartoonist whose work appears regularly in The Times — described an incident in which he was stopped for jaywalking on Melrose Avenue in 2001. Rall said he was thrown up against a wall, handcuffed and roughed up by an LAPD motorcycle policeman who also threw his driver’s license into the sewer. Rall also wrote that dozens of onlookers shouted in protest at the officer’s conduct.

Since then, the Los Angeles Police Department has provided records about the incident, including a complaint Rall filed at the time. An audiotape of the encounter recorded by the police officer does not back up Rall’s assertions; it gives no indication that there was physical violence of any sort by the policeman or that Rall’s license was thrown into the sewer or that he was handcuffed. Nor is there any evidence on the recording of a crowd of shouting onlookers.

In Rall’s initial complaint to the LAPD, he describes the incident without mentioning any physical violence or handcuffing but says that the police officer was “belligerent and hostile” and that he threw Rall’s license into the “gutter.” The tape depicts a polite interaction.

In addition, Rall wrote in his blog post that the LAPD dismissed his complaint without ever contacting him. Department records show that internal affairs investigators made repeated attempts to contact Rall, without success.

Asked to explain these inconsistencies, Rall said he stands by his blog post.

However, the recording and other evidence provided by the LAPD raise serious questions about the accuracy of Rall’s blog post. Based on this, the piece should not have been published.

Rall’s future work will not appear in The Times.

Good riddance. But again: it’s not like they weren’t already on notice.

47 Responses to “Ted Rall Dumped by L.A. Times for Dishonesty”

  1. Good riddance is right.

    elissa (c21b1f)

  2. Rall’s future work will not appear in The Times.

    not unlike the khalidi tape

    happyfeet (a037ad)

  3. oh and also welcome back i guess your dreams weren’t your ticket out

    happyfeet (a037ad)

  4. I am pleased to report I’ve never seen a Ted Rall cartoon.

    Unless it was repeated somewhere on the intertubes by someone holding it up to ridicule.

    Steve57 (20f7d7)

  5. “Kettle?… this is Pot, yer black.”

    Colonel Haiku (c5bbac)

  6. So the dog loses one flea?

    Colonel Haiku (c5bbac)

  7. Robin Abacab call your office…

    Colonel Haiku (c5bbac)

  8. After the September 11 attacks led to the invasion of Afghanistan, Ted Rall was one of the earliest “journalists” to go into that country for reporting. He used to have a regular segment on the Bill Handel Show on KFI radio out here in Los Angeles where he would call in and update everyone on what was going on. I thought it was pretty brave to go into Afghanistan as an embed with the troops, despite the fact that Rall was known as a hardcore lefty. But as I heard his reports coming in two or three times a week, I started to wonder if he wasn’t embellishing things more than a little bit. I recall that he was embedded in some location like Kandahar where our troops had pretty easily routed the Taliban and set up base, yet Rall always had these breathtaking reports of the harrowing danger that they were facing, with some near-misses that almost led to his demise. At a certain point I just concluded that he had a propensity for embellishment and stopped believing what he said. Looks like he is somewhat pathological in his story-telling.

    JVW (ba78f9)

  9. JVW;

    To be fair, a left reporter from LA is likely to take sporadic small arms fire that doesn’t come real close far more seriously than a soldier would.

    Which doesn’t mean he isn’t a liar.

    I guess what really surprises ME is that the LA Times is willing to ashcan him just for lying about the cops.

    C. S. P. Schofield (f04d38)

  10. “Pathological”! There it is JVW. Perry manages to permeate every thread.

    Hoagie (f4eb27)

  11. Hari kiri please.

    Rodney King's Spirit (9225a4)

  12. Mr Schofield, wouldn’t a leftist reporter from LA be used to sporadic small arms fire that doesn’t come real close?

    The Dana who's glad he doesn't live in the big city (f6a568)

  13. He’s fine example of a Pulitzer prize winner.

    AZ Bob (7d2a2c)

  14. Steve57, it’s possible you HAVE seen a Ted Rall “cartoon” and, quite reasonably, thought it a pile of random lines or a child’s fingerpainting. His art is so bad, and so resistant to any improvement over time, as to make Matt Groening’s “Life In Hell” look like an Albrecht Durer engraving.

    Mitch (341ca0)

  15. Life In Hell is one of my all time favorites

    JD (34f761)

  16. Hiltzik is still there spouting nonsense, though. Too soon to celebrate. His sock puppet history is about as bad.

    Mike K (90dfdc)

  17. JD, you’re right that Life In Hell is well-written (or at least was; I own several of the paperback collections but haven’t seen the toon in a decade or more). I’m still surprised that Groening didn’t improve his draftsmanship over the years, though, or farm out the drawing to a better artist, as Garry Trudeau started doing long ago.

    Mitch (341ca0)

  18. I guess what really surprises ME is that the LA Times is willing to ashcan him just for lying about the cops.

    The city council ranges from leftist to communist

    The mayor is a leftist
    The LA Times is leftist

    Why should it be surprising that the LA Times is sensitive to lies about the folks working for the mayor and city council?

    Kevin M (25bbee)

  19. Maybe they’ll hire Ramirez back.

    Kevin M (25bbee)

  20. That’s sort of like Edmund Kemper being bounced from the Manson Family for harbor ink insane thoughts.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  21. The LA Times is at least better than the NY Times, which has a serial liar editing their Opinion pages.

    Kevin M (25bbee)

  22. harboring

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  23. Don’t worry. Rall is certain that the LAT is nothing but a bunch of bigoted racists for believing that damned lying audiotape over his own words.

    IGotBupkis, "Si tacuisses, philosophus mansisses." (225d0d)

  24. His art is so bad, and so resistant to any improvement over time, as to make Matt Groening’s “Life In Hell” look like an Albrecht Durer engraving.

    Except that Groening is occasionally funny, while definitely a bit of a liberal chump, while Rall is a blatant lying racist PoS who feeds off false racist claims and general race pandering.

    IGotBupkis, "Si tacuisses, philosophus mansisses." (225d0d)

  25. When are they going to dump that lying scumsucker sock puppeting Michael Hiltzik?

    Comanche Voter (1d5c8b)

  26. I can’t believe the lame LA Times got rid of the artistically very hilarious and sophisticated cartoonist Michael Ramirez for the clunky-yahoo David Horsey. Yea, I do like Ramirez’s politics over that of Horsey (or the non-regular Ted Rall), but I didn’t care for the ideology of their former cartoonist, Paul Conrad, yet thought he too was first-class.

    I’ve sometimes wondered if the Pulitzer committee gave Ramirez two of their prizes — or found it too difficult to ignore him indefinitely — only because of Michael’s surname and his being half Latino, half-Asian.

    BTW, there’s something very, very rinky-dink about the LA Times having their main political cartoonist also writing a regular op-ed column—assuming Horsey is still doing that since I have pretty much stopped perusing that paper.

    Mark (e9ce45)

  27. @5, 6, 7– The Col. is on fire!
    And then Kemper… awesome.

    Gramps, the original (bc022b)

  28. So the Times sets their hair on fire over a minor incident that wasn’t at all news-worthy 14 years ago. But couldn’t be bothered to get to the bottom of a sniper “incident” that happened in Bosniawith Sir Hillary.

    We all know the reason. Rall finally got too big for his britches and the Times was looking for an excuse to dump him.

    Bill H (2a858c)

  29. Everyone has known for a long time that Ted Rall is nothing more than a propagandist. The only question is why the LA Times would drop him for jaywalking since lack of talent and being ignorant were not enough.

    Hey, wait a second. I suspect there may be more to this story.

    Ag80 (eb6ffa)

  30. Are you trying to tell me the author of “The Anti-American Manifesto” is a lying jerkwad?
    The same guy who shat all over Pat Tillman?
    You mean the fellow who called Condi a “house nigga?”
    Ted the marxist?

    Sure you got the right guy?

    gp (0c542c)

  31. I was introduced to Rall’s work when I first ventured onto the interweb in 1994. I spotted him as a leftist hack immediately, and began to ignore any reproductions of or links to his work, which at the time included some written columns as well – which may as well have been produced by the Politburo’s propaganda agent.

    But if LAT is firing contributors for dishonesty now, who will be left to put out the paper*?

    * They do still put one out, don’t they? Haven’t read it in a decade or more.

    Estragon (ada867)

  32. Now I remember, he was linked often at the old Capital Hill Blue site. It’s proprietor, Doug Thompson, was a freelance photographer and claimed to be a libertarian, but was actually all over the map (had some other issues, to put it discreetly).

    Estragon (ada867)

  33. #27… Gramps… the Kemper reference required a sick fook to get it, and you’re right there with me, lol!

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  34. * They do still put one out, don’t they? Haven’t read it in a decade or more.

    Estragon (ada867) — 7/28/2015 @ 8:30 pm

    Yah- got a good friend of mine, lives in Sylmar, gets daily and Sunday. Yes, hes a lefty. We’ve had several political arguments over beer and/or booze at his kitchen table.

    I miss the Herald Examiner. And the OC Register. Yes, I know it’s still in print- just barely. And the San Diego Union (before it was the mishmash called the UT).

    Bill H (2a858c)

  35. This is awesome!!!!

    Robert C. J. Parry (ae5919)

  36. Forgotten, and now hopefully gone.

    John P. Squibob (976fd9)

  37. Shocka!

    A leftist lies about interactions with The Man!

    Patricia (5fc097)

  38. That’s OK, Rall will probably get hired by MSNBC as a valet to bring buffalo wings and cheesy fries to Ed Shultz.

    OregonMuse (f726a5)

  39. [i]Asked to explain these inconsistencies, Rall said he stands by his blog post.[/i]

    In other words, he doubled down on stupid.

    OregonMuse (f726a5)

  40. karma.. much like Ted Rall’s mother, is a bitch..

    Franklancer (bfd46d)

  41. You miss the OC Register? ‘Scuse me while I go all John McEnroe here: “YOU CANNOT BE #$#@#$# SERIOUS!” What else do you miss – the Lyle, Lyle Crocodile books for kids?

    Vladim Paler (abc5ac)

  42. Above post (#41) aimed at #34 …

    Vladim Paler (abc5ac)

  43. it’s hard to trust the LAPD

    they’re very untrustworthy people

    for example rampart and et cetera

    just terribly ignoble behaviours is what these ones are given to

    happyfeet (a037ad)

  44. You miss the OC Register? ‘Scuse me while I go all John McEnroe here: “YOU CANNOT BE #$#@#$# SERIOUS!” What else do you miss – the Lyle, Lyle Crocodile books for kids?

    Vladim Paler (abc5ac) — 7/29/2015 @ 1:23 pm

    You must be fresh and new, almost virginal to SoCal. Chances are you aren’t even old enough to to think back when the OC Register really was a conservative paper.

    And it’s “One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish”.

    Bill H (2a858c)

  45. Been a proud citizen of the Independent Republic of Southern California since ’88 (four other states and Europe before that) – am also a veteran (now-retired) journalist. The Reg has barely been worth the designation of “newspaper” for the last 20 years. A hodgepodge of press releases, PR flak and semi-literate babblings by interns and kiddie graduates of journalism school. (Winnie the Pooh rules.)

    Vladim Paler (abc5ac)

  46. Rall, Horsey, Hiltzik….all the same. Simple minded, condescendingly sure they are right, substituting snark for thought. Its embarrassing that the city has a newspaper with lightweights like that.

    Harcourt Fenton Mudd (5e0a82)

  47. The Reg has barely been worth the designation of “newspaper” for the last 20 years. A hodgepodge of press releases, PR flak and semi-literate babblings by interns and kiddie graduates of journalism school. (Winnie the Pooh rules.)

    Vladim Paler (abc5ac) — 7/30/2015 @ 9:57 am

    Like I pointed out: you don’t remember it. I do. Oh- and one of the rarest of native Californians- native San Diegan, born in ’59. Daddy was a jarhead though, so we moved around a bit before coming back in’77.

    Bill H (2a858c)


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