Irony Overload: Michael Hiltzik Attacks Chevron for Using Sock Puppets
Michael Hiltzik has a column titled A Chevron PR website pretends to be an objective news source. Hilztik complains that a site called the Richmond Standard is pretending to be something it is not: a community news site. For example, the Richmond Standard site has a piece that describes the “rude, messy, and smelly” people at the People’s Climate March — commentary that sounds like it is coming from the grass roots, but which is actually coming from Chevron. In his column, Hiltzik talks to the PR consultant for Chevron who runs the site, and confronts him about the fact that the site is nothing but, well . . . a sock puppet (you knew that term was coming!) for Chevron:
The site is “transparent” about its sponsorship, he says. That’s true, up to a point: The homepage states that it’s “brought to you by Chevron Richmond. We aim to provide Richmond residents with important information about what’s going on in the community, and to provide a voice for Chevron Richmond on civic issues.” Chevron corporate announcements are sequestered in a section labeled “Chevron Speaks.”
Is that sufficient disclosure? The answer is a resounding “no.”
“The disclosures don’t go very far to show how news can be corrupted,” says Ed Wasserman, a news media ethics expert who is dean of UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism.
So, to sum up: this is Michael Hiltzik complaining about a sock puppet’s unethical lack of transparency.
Michael Hiltzik — the original sock puppet guy.
I assume most of you remember this, but if not, treat yourself to a stroll down memory lane. Back in 2006, I exposed the fact that Hiltzik was running around leaving nasty comments about me, Hugh Hewitt, Cathy Seipp, and other conservatives, all under assumed names. The details are in this long and joyous post. If you’ve never read it, do so now. My favorite part was when Hiltzik, under his own name, praised comments he had left under an assumed name at my site:
For anyone interested, Specter is getting his head handed to him over at the Patterico blog for trying to sleaze out from under his flat misstatements of fact. And that’s a conservative blog. Follow the link above, and enjoy the carnage.
The person who was supposedly handing Specter’s head to him was a guy named “Mikekoshi” — who, I showed, was Michael Hiltzik himself. So you had Hiltzik praising his own arguments and falsely implying that they were being made by a conservative (“And that’s a conservative blog.”). As a result of this dishonest inanity, Hiltzik lost his business column. As the Associated Press reported in 2006: Los Angeles Times Ends Column of Writer Who Used Pseudonyms.
The Los Angeles Times said Sunday that it was discontinuing the column and blog of a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter because he posted items online using assumed names.
The decision, reported in an editor’s note on The Times’s Web site, came a week after the paper suspended Michael A. Hiltzik’s Golden State blog. It said Mr. Hiltzik would be reassigned after serving a suspension.
Mr. Hiltzik “did not commit any ethical violations in his newspaper column, and an internal inquiry found no inaccurate reporting in his postings in his blog or on the Web,” the editor’s note said. “But employing pseudonyms constitutes deception and violates a central tenet of The Times’s ethics guidelines: Staff members must not misrepresent themselves and must not conceal their affiliation with The Times.”
. . . .
Mr. Hiltzik had been in a blog feud with Patrick Frey, the Los Angeles County deputy district attorney, who writes the conservative blog Patterico’s Pontifications. Mr. Frey recently contended that Mr. Hiltzik had been posting messages to his blog and other Web sites under assumed names.
Mr. Frey said he did not object to anonymity on the Web but rather to people using “pseudonyms to pretend to be something or somebody they aren’t.”
At the time, Dean Baquet (now editor of the New York Times) said that Hiltzik had to lose his column because he could no longer write about others’ dishonesty:
Baquet said he wasn’t certain sure how to punish Hiltzik until he read about Ken Lay’s trial last week and thought how the Enron saga would make great fodder for a business columnist. He realized then, Baquet said, that his business columnist—Hiltzik—could no longer write credibly about duplicity in the business world. There’s no place, he said, for dishonesty under the Times banner.
Well, sure there is, Dean Baquet. There’s all kinds of room for it! And nothing says so better than the utter gall of Michael Hiltzik criticizing business owners for using sock puppets.
Thanks to Robert C.J. Parry on Twitter.
Hiltzik and Keith Olbermann…two nutcases that keep coming out from
Hoss (a6f4d8) — 9/23/2014 @ 8:02 amunder their rocks to haunt us. I’m reminded of the carnival sport “Whack
a Mole:” when you try to whack the mole, it ducks down and reappears again
from a different hole.
People like him are incapable of feeling shame, or embarrassment
JD (285732) — 9/23/2014 @ 8:11 amI think “koshi” is Hiltzik’s pet name for a very small portion of his anatomy. Keep your minds out of the gutter–I’m talking about his brain.
I haven’t figured out how this clown has managed to survive at the Los Angeles Times. They’ve fired far better writers than Hiltzik. I assume his survival may have something to do with his possession of certain photos of highly placed executives in embarrassing situations. I can think of no other logical explanation.
Skeptical Voter (12e67d) — 9/23/2014 @ 8:43 ami don’t understand how anyone involved with the MFM can talk about “accuracy” or “integrity” or anything else like that these days without being immediately struck dead by lightning…
redc1c4 (abd49e) — 9/23/2014 @ 8:50 amSo, “Mike Koshi” got his column, or whatever they call it these days, back with the LA Times for what reason? The “Just nevermind” exemption? Bad enough they have to splash his ugly smirking (well, duh) mug all over their website, as if this was some kind of selling point. “Yeah, let’s put Hiltzik’s photo ALL over the place. That will boost our circulation/hits/whatever.” (Have to hand it to them for figuring out Abcarian’s old photo was a loser, and changing it to her “Ain’t she so cute” one.)
MikeHs (03abc5) — 9/23/2014 @ 8:51 amThe converted are often zealots. Consider ex-smokers.
Kevin M (b357ee) — 9/23/2014 @ 9:43 amHilzik is smart enough to learn from his mistakes, yet he foolishly attacked Chevron for transgressions he’d already been caught and exposed for committing (here), and all the while with the full knowledge Patterico and several commenters here were monitoring his columns in the LA Times.
Yet, Hilzik couldn’t restrain himself, he’s clever enough and fully capable of making the case against Chevron for transparent duplicity without exposing himself to the accusation of blatant hypocrisy.
But he did it anyway, that’s not only stupid, it’s sick. Truly, a haughty pride and an overarching arrogance are the self-generated preconditions for a public spanking, and he did it to himself.
ropelight (3d6197) — 9/23/2014 @ 10:24 amThe LA Times bench is not deep.
Colonel Haiku (d0a528) — 9/23/2014 @ 11:46 amRay Lewis was on ESPN criticizing Ray Rice. “You can cover some things up, but there are some things you can’t cover up.”
I changed the channel.
JRM (de6363) — 9/23/2014 @ 12:24 pmit’s like rain on your wedding day
Dustin (801032) — 9/23/2014 @ 12:52 pmin a similar light:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/23/opinion/joe-nocera-behind-the-chevron-case.html?_r=0
narciso (ee1f88) — 9/23/2014 @ 1:53 pmCome now, who among us has not sockpuppeted a time or two?
Ellers (341ca0) — 9/23/2014 @ 2:18 pmI agree with Ellers. Well said! Besides, after 8 years, let alone 11, you have to forgive and forget.
Rick Ellensberg (341ca0) — 9/23/2014 @ 2:19 pmThe problem with forgiving and forgetting Sock Puppet Hiltzik is that he heaps fresh new dung on your plate with every column. If Hiltzik had simply disappeared into the mists of time 8 years ago, he’d be forgotten–and maybe even forgiven.
But there Hiltzik is two or three times a week in the Los Angeles Times spewing out some new improbable load of codswallop. On occasion I have tried–sincerely tried–to get past the second paragraph of a contemporary Hiltzik column. But I really just can’t go there.
In his own way Hiltzik is as sanctimonious a pontificating prevaricating poltroon as the Times’ sports columnist Bill Plaschke (who is also usually unreadable).
I’d like to forget Hiltzik, but there is he, like a big wet messy spot on a puppy training paper (which by the way is an excellent use for the Times) two or three times a week.
Skeptical Voter (12e67d) — 9/23/2014 @ 2:30 pmAnd the deeper irony of an employee of a Democrat agi-prop organ attacking a company for having a company newspaper.
nk (dbc370) — 9/23/2014 @ 2:40 pmGood point, nk.
Ann Kay (dbc370) — 9/23/2014 @ 2:41 pmI agree with nk and Kay Ann but I think it’s “agitprop”.
Kay Ann (dbc370) — 9/23/2014 @ 2:43 pmLol Kay Ann/Ann Kay!
elissa (98cc3b) — 9/23/2014 @ 2:54 pmI posted a comment on the column about Hiltzik’s history of sock puppetry. It was blocked by the site admin. Oh, the irony.
Robert C. J. Parry (cdd6a8) — 9/23/2014 @ 4:04 pmThere you go, cheering on Kay Ann and Ann Kay, yet you paid NO attention at all to Ellers &/or Rick Ellensberg.
I’m so disappointed.
A_Nonny_Mouse (ab4828) — 9/23/2014 @ 4:43 pmOK. Fair enough Mouse, (or should I say Mr. Greenwald) But nk had to get extra points for the daring yet subtle Ann Kay I thought.
elissa (98cc3b) — 9/23/2014 @ 4:58 pmI’ve found it is hard
Colonel Haiku (d0a528) — 9/23/2014 @ 5:29 pmTo rilly get all riled up
in Laguna Beach
but that said i will
Colonel Haiku (d0a528) — 9/23/2014 @ 5:33 pmendeavor to persevere
just like Chief Dan George
you have to persevere people are counting on you
happyfeet (a785d5) — 9/23/2014 @ 6:07 pmYes, too much pressure for an old guy.
Colonel Haiku (d0a528) — 9/23/2014 @ 9:06 pmWell, sportswriters and TV anchors bully NFL players about spousal abuse, don’t they? Hiltzik’s huffiness about sock puppets is just another case of the media pot calling the kettle black.
http://spectator.org/articles/60468/when-journalists-commit-domestic-violence
Dirty Old Man (8b7dae) — 9/23/2014 @ 9:48 pmYou can discredit the messenger with glee, and keep your petty feud with Hiltzik going. But I live 300 feet from the Chevron Richmond Refinery, and I see the $1.6 million that Chevron is using to sway the local elections by running misleading slick attack ads on well-meaning residents whoi are running for City Council positions that pay a whopping $1000 a month.
Meanwhile the Chevron slate get hand outs, campaign support, and ttys to pave the way for the refinery to increase production without without improving air and water quality in the city. That’s the real story: Chevron spending money so they can drag their feet on air and water quality improvements.
Bruce Kaplan (4602a6) — 9/23/2014 @ 10:44 pmHiltzik is just trolling all of the LA Times readership.
Kaplan, no that’s not the “real” story.
SPQR (c4e119) — 9/23/2014 @ 11:37 pmBruce, did they build the refinery after you moved there? If it was already there then how can you bitch about air quality?
BradnSA (3a202d) — 9/24/2014 @ 12:06 amPatterico:
You may be interested that my attempt to post the following comment this morning on the Hiltzik story was banned by the L.A. Times:
“Mr. Hiltzik, isn’t what you are complaining of here the same as what you did back in 2006 and for which you lost your L.A. Times blog? You know, where you would leave a snarky comment on a conservative blog using the pseudonym “Mikekoshi” and then praise (on your L.A. Times blog) that very “Mikekoshi” comment without telling your L.A. Times readers that the praiseworthy comment you were citing actually came from you? https://patterico.com/2006/04/20/three-in-one-michael-hiltzik-mikekoshi-and-nofanofcablecos/
“And didn’t Dean Baquet (now editor at the New York Times) force you to stop blogging at the L.A. Times? According to an interview by L.A. Observed, “[h]e realized then, Baquet said, that his business columnist—Hiltzik—could no longer write credibly about duplicity in the business world. There’s no place, he said, for dishonesty under the Times banner.” http://www.laobserved.com/archive/2006/05/the_hiltzik_affair.php
“Inquiring minds want to know.”
It would appear the L.A. Times brooks no dissent. By the way, I always post under my own name because I am proud of it and I’m not ashamed to admit it.
Barry Sullivan (ff0106) — 9/24/2014 @ 8:29 amFWIW, during my time in Berkeley, back in the early ’80s, the Richmond area was informally known as the Cancer Belt. There were 5 oil refineries and nearly 40 chemical plants in Contra Costa county and much higher than normal rates for both lung and breast cancer were commonly attributed to Richmond’s unhealthy industrial environment.
ropelight (5bdf6a) — 9/24/2014 @ 8:39 am