SPECIAL: A Christmas Message – In Defense of Investigative Journalism

Published December 25, 2024.

Dec 25, 2024

Los Angeles City Hall is illuminated in honor of Mothers Against Drunk Driving on December 13, 2024 with moon rising above by author (GoPro Hero 11 Black)

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By Zachary Ellison, Independent Journalist

This Christmas, I’m sending a message in defense of investigative journalism. The Global Investigative Journalism Network notes the following characteristics of investigative journalism: “systematic, in-depth, and original research and reporting, often involving the unearthing of secrets.” The essential traits of an investigative journalist can be considered to be someone who “employs a careful methodology, with heavy reliance on primary sources, forming and testing a hypothesis, and rigorous fact-checking.” Some investigative journalists will follow stories for years, but increasingly in the modern newsroom, such probes often only last weeks-to-months. The Managing Editor of ProPublica, a nonprofit newsroom, Charles Ornstein, recently, on December 18, announced that the outfit would extend its 50 State Initiative launched in 2018 into 2025 with the goal of offsetting these losses into “local investigation.” Is it working?

None are slated to be in California, the nation’s most populous state, and although “local investigation” isn’t strictly defined, it contrasts with the idea of a nationally focused press. Still, Ornstein sought to contextualize the renewed effort in national terms, writing, “The changes promised by Donald Trump as he prepares for his second administration are sure to create effects that will be felt locally.” Donald Trump isn’t the only story in America, even as the political figure inches toward beginning his second term on January 20, 2025. Nor is a contrasting figure, Luigi Mangione, a would-be folk hero who recently made headlines for assassinating a major healthcare executive writing on his bullets and leaving Monopoly money in a backpack in Central Park. Closer to home in Los Angeles, investigative journalism is also in deep crisis.

One veteran journalist recently told me that the press here has been reduced to “parachute journalists,” meaning sending such people after stories for which they have little prior knowledge or expertise. Such journalism unquestionably forms the majority of news information, which often is produced in much the same way as "content,” even as the idea of journalists as influencers is derided. Generating outcry recently was the proposal of Los Angeles Times owner Patrick Soon-Shiong, a billionaire biomedical executive, to have his reporters pass their stories through a so-called “bias meter.” In this viewpoint, news has become inherently political, and any expression of opinion, much less a mission, results in the idea of coverage being skewed. Soon-Shiong himself struggled to be apolitical, ultimately turning to his own journalists in an attempt to regain the high ground. The meter, ostensibly fueled by artificial intelligence, has yet to appear on the website, much less the printed page of the newspaper first published in 1881.

Personally, I welcome the bias meter! Let Patrick Soon-Shiong make a fool of himself and all but embarrass the entire profession by playing to the masses who have concluded that an essentially dangerous liberal media is creating its own alternative facts and destroying the country one editorial column at a time. To be fair, the Times still has many hardworking journalists brining the news to the public, even if they’re routinely attacked for it by the likes of former Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva, who recently wrote a book again dishonestly attacking Times journalists Alene Tchekmedyian and Keri Blakinger for having the audacity to expose his corruption and question his machinations. I couldn’t be bothered to read it, nor do I have any desire to pass him a buck. The self-revealing title is: Sheriff: Holding the Thin Blue Line in a Deep Blue State, and seemingly it’s been self-published in conjunction with local printing firm American Publishers Inc., which promises, “Whether you're a first-time author or an established business looking to publish your latest work, we have the skills and resources to help you achieve your publishing goals.” This isn’t to say the major publishers are much better.

For example, as one of my investigations highlighted and which is the subject of ongoing litigation, major Los Angeles developer Izek Shomof concealed his criminal record while proclaiming to have lived a crime-free life in the country in Dreams Don’t Die, published by Simon & Schuster. Freedom of speech has essentially become the right to lie, no matter the medium or the circumstances, right up and until the point where you’re on the stand answering to a judge. Even then, what’s a little nonsense between friends, perjury? Los Angeles is a place of dreams, but it’s also a ship of fools. So it wasn’t surprising that one of Villanueva’s witch-hunts against former District Attorney’s Office official Diana Teran came to a screeching halt just before Christmas. With Los Angeles Times journalist Keri Blakinger writing on December 23 about the matter, that alleged computer hacking on the basis of having assembled incriminatory court records against Sheriff’s Deputies: “A California appeals court is taking a closer look at the criminal prosecution of a former top district attorney’s office advisor, asking the office of state Attorney General Rob Bonta to further justify the case in court before deciding whether to let it move forward.”

Christmas most certainly isn’t April Fool’s Day, and Alex Villanueva, who seems to be itching for a re-run against successor Robert Luna, really didn’t need that helipad behind his house. Credit the Los Angeles Times for having put a serious dent in his aspirations, which, as we now know, included an almost systematic campaign to obstruct press investigations into his activities. You might say it was almost like Kevin de León, except KDL is still getting away, at least for now, with hiding things that really should have been dug up. Having spent weeks staring him down in his final days on the Los Angeles City Council, I’m now convinced that perhaps there’s never perhaps in the history of the entire State of California has there been a better candidate for an investigative journalism political career autopsy than KDL, and Villanueva is suing over being placed on a “do not hire list.” KDL remains under investigation by the California Fair Political Practices Commission. The two Latino Trumpian wannabes are perfect targets for “local investigation” of the type envisioned by Pro-Publica, and yet here we are, left with swan songs.

Never mind that Christmas is supposed to be about peace on earth and goodwill towards men, at least if you’re not in Ukraine. Make no mistake, Los Angeles isn’t immune to corruption, and it’s surely not immune to big egos or bad hairdos. The two seem to go greasy palm-in-palm! That’s just life next to a freeway or on an LASD prison bus with Villanueva pleading on X, formerly known as Twitter, on December 19 about the lack of purchases by the LA County Board of Supervisors for new buses, writing, “Depleting the fleet was part of the defunding agenda” with a touch of “#FactsMatter.” Lovely right, and this is the guy who doesn’t want the bad cops, or deputies list, known as the Brady list maintained by the DA’s office? With any luck, Diana Teran once cleared of charges will go for a big, fat defamation lawsuit and put Villanueva in the pauper’s house. How and why the Attorney General’s office ever agreed to the prosecution should be investigated. Sadly, this isn’t the only mischief happening around.

In Los Angeles, you can get away with almost everything, right up until the point a federal judge goes: What are you thinking? Don’t bet on it in Superior Court though, unless the judge is feeling it! The Courts in Los Angeles operated right up through Christmas Eve, and in fact, they’re so backlogged that getting to that precious right to a jury trial now can take years. What this means is that scarce press investigation is more valuable than ever before and yet more disorganized. The rise of online media has meant that news aggregation is more valuable, not that investigative journalism is flourishing. In his December 23, “Best ways to support journalism in 2025,” former Los Angeles Times journalist Matt Pearce, now on Substack, writes: “We know things suck. What can we do about it?” Pearce offers suggestions for whether you’re a news consumer, a journalist or a policymaker. My only addition is to start asking more questions, and if you see someone asking questions and not getting answers, start asking with them.

So often the first step toward forming meaningful hypotheses about what’s really going on in unclear situations is asking questions, because that’s how you get at the mindset and then ultimately the motive, and there’s always a motive. It’s like murder, the power of detection, and so many of the tricks of the trade, even as much as public records requests are about using your intuition and listening to people. This Christmas, I’m defending the right to ask questions in Los Angeles, and that’s more than just saying what you want, because everyone has an opinion, and while there’s wisdom in crowds, sometimes you need that perfect source. The one with the document, the one with a foolproof account, because that’s how you know what records you should be looking for in the first place. All of this takes time, and it even takes money.

Knowing where the meeting is happening is half the struggle of getting to it in the first place, and while recordings of such affairs are great, they don’t capture what happens on the sidelines or the backrooms. The Los Angeles City Council is practically run out of backroom, and apparently, according to new reporting from the Los Angeles Times thanks to one enterprising nonprofit, on disappearing messages in Google Chat. So that’s where we’re at, in a brave new era of secrecy, even gamesmanship. That’s not to say it always works or that the distance between Downtown and Hollywood on the 101 Freeway is so great, because there are a lot of dirty tricks going on in both, and sadly, the separation between watchdogs and industry journalists has never been so great despite the money trail following along behind the exhaust fumes. This is simply a place where “local investigation” goes to die, often at the hands of "fixers” or, of course, attorney’s.

That’s not to say that all of these folks are bad, but the power to keep bad press at bay and stories at bay is just as great as ever in the land of sunshine. Strangely, you can’t even sue for defamation over things said in court, and a civil tort for such language has a one-year statute of limitation. Not all lies are defamatory, nor are they equal. The ability to lie without repercussion might as well be the new motto of the City of Angeles, because man, there’s a lot of dishonesty flying around these parts lately at all levels. Selective omission—they call it the art of burying the story—catch-kill, or as Luigi Mangione wrote on his bullets in reference to a book about the health insurance industry: “Deny” “Defend” and “Depose"—It’s been said that the outcry captures the anger Americans feel at the health insurance industry, but in a country that’s let Donald Trump skate for the January 6, 2021 Insurrection, really I’m wondering about anger at government, because when that one rears its head around again, things are looking ugly.

If Christmas is supposed to have some meaning of peace, let’s hope for peace in the coming year in this country. A whole lot of people are likely banking on that not happening, stockpiling weapons, consuming dishonest media, and skewing everything into a matter of two different opinions rather than sincere discussion. Us versus them, brother against brother, even sister against sister—is that where all this claptrap is heading? A society of lies, built on a foundation of violence, of deportations, and outrage over the life choices of others. Never before in the history of society have we become so digitized, to the point that it’s even dangerous. Now lawsuits are emerging over social media, claiming that the addictive properties of it are bad for mental health, especially among young people. Are warning labels a solution? Or is there something about the availability of mass communications tools that’s just as bad as guns?

Some people love guns, and some people love Facebook, Instagram, X, YouTube, and TikTok. Even this platform isn’t immune from a dangerous degree of infatuation. So this Christmas, all I’m asking is that people start to take the idea that investigative journalism just might need some defending, including in the place I call home, Los Angeles. After two plus years of trying to investigate all sorts of things in what might be the craziest place on Earth, I’m logically and rightfully concerned that people just don’t understand the distinction or the need. “Did you see that headline?” they go, or referencing a meme, it’s hilarious. That’s where we’re at, and it’s not really a serious place to be in, because when we’re afraid to speak the truth to power, all of our society suffers. The beauty in digital simplicity, in video clips, even in audio recordings, is that they capture content and information at certain points in time. Nothing never comes from something, and so that’s where we’re at; it’s like looking at a black box from a plane crash that’s been erased, and I, for one, am concerned that if we have no investigation, we have no facts, and facts are the core of good journalism.

Link: What Is Investigative Journalism?

Link: Changing Laws and Changing Lives: Why ProPublica Is Dedicated to Local Investigations

Link: The 'L.A. Times' will have a 'Bias Meter' in their effort to revamp their image

Link: Sheriff: Holding the Thin Blue Line in a Deep Blue State

Link: American Publishers Inc.

Link: Publishers Win Anti-SLAPP Motion and Fee Award in Lawsuit Over Book Cover

Link: Dreams Don't Die

Link: Trial of former D.A. advisor on hold after appeals court steps in

Link: Former Sheriff Villanueva to file $25-million lawsuit over county’s ‘Do Not Rehire’ label

Link: State watchdog agency is investigating donations to Kevin de León’s reelection campaign

Link: Alex Villanueva Tweet RE: Prison Buses

Link: Best ways to support journalism in 2025