Whipped Cream Difficulties

I was going to put this in one of the random posts, but simply forgot. It probably deserves a separate post anyway. Back in December of last year, the LAT ran a story about Occidental College. Specifically, the LAT alleged that Occidental had failed to report 27 incidents of sexual assault in 2012: the paper stated that the college was required, under the terms of the Clery Act, to report those incidents. It appears that there was some back and forth between the college and the LAT over this, and…

Occidental representatives approached The Times early this month to seek a correction. Documents reviewed by The Times this week show that the 27 incidents did not fall under the law’s disclosure requirements for a variety of reasons.

Some of the incidents were “sexual harassment, inappropriate text messages or other conduct not covered by the act”. Others took place off of campus property and thus did not have to be reported. Others took place in 2011 and were reported then. So, basically, the LAT‘s article was bullshit. But wait, there’s more!

Separately, as they began looking into the complaint, Times editors learned from the author of the articles, staff writer Jason Felch, that he had engaged in an inappropriate relationship with someone who was a source for the Dec. 7 story and others Felch had written about Occidental’s handling of sexual assault allegations. Felch acknowledged that after the relationship ended, he continued to use the person as a source for future articles.

Can you say, “conflict of interest”? Can you say, “the Times fired the reporter’s ass“? I knew you could. (Hattip: Romenesko.)