The L.A. Times Officially Retracts Tupac Story

The L.A. Times on Monday (April 7) officially retracted the controversial investigative story on Tupac’s 1994 shooting penned by reporter Chuck Philips. Released on the paper’s website on March 17, the story implied implied that a number of music industry figures, including Sean “Diddy” Combs and Jimmy “Henchman” Rosemond, had prior knowledge of an ambush on ‘Pac at the Quad studios in Manhattan. The story was later disproved by an investigative piece published by website thesmokinggun.com. The web site’s report pointed out that a number of documents used by Philips to source his story were actually fakes created by incarcerated conman James Sabatino. Combs and Rosemond rejected Philips story immediately after its publication and maintained that they had nothing to do with the attack on ‘Pac. After an internal investigation prompted by The Smoking Gun’s report, The L.A. Times apologized to the parties involved. In today’s retraction, the newspaper reiterates its apology and retracts comments made in the story and later by Philips on a blog and during an online chat. “To the extent these publications could be interpreted as creating the impression that Combs was involved in arranging the attack, The Times wishes to correct that misimpression, which was neither stated in the article nor intended,” the paper said. Statements in the article suggesting that Diddy was informed of the ambush by Sabatino prior to the incident were also specifically retracted.