Thread by @thackerpd

1) @latimes Michael Hiltzik has a long history of unethical journalism: spying on his reporter colleagues & creating sock puppet accounts.

I'm releasing recording by 2 women Hiltzik interviewed who were harmed by vaccines and Hiltzik then smeared as anti-vax.

2) LA Times editors caught Hiltzik in "sting operation" in 1993 spying on his own LA Times colleagues. The paper then ordered him back from Moscow. disinformationchronicle.substack.com/p/new-recordin…

3) Hiltzik graced the pages of the NY Times 13 years later when LA Times editors caught him making up shit and creating fake accounts.

"[Y]ou really expect your staff to maintain their integrity,” an editor for a North Carolina paper.

4) @CJR: “sort of like stuffing the ballot box … I think it’s silly and stupid … the online equivalent of writing a letter to the editor under a false name praising your own work.”

5) Hiltzik was reassigned to "sports investigation" and Dean Basquet put out statement: “[E]mploying pseudonyms constitutes deception and violates a central tenet of our ethics guidelines: We do not misrepresent ourselves and we do not conceal our affiliation with The Times

6) In this incident, Hiltzik knew the two women he was interviewing couldn't be "anti-vaccine" because one was a doctor who had given vaccines. The other had been a volunteer in a vaccine trial and then in another for vaccine injured by the NIH.

7) Hiltzik made a vague "critics say" claim to label them anti-vaxxer w/o naming any critics. The interviews make clear that the "critics" are actually Hiltzik himself.

This violates LA Times ethics guidelines.

8) Both women recorded their interviews b/c they knew Hiltzik was on a smear campaign. You can listen to the interviews and view transcripts yourself. disinformationchronicle.substack.com/p/new-recordin…