The Los Angeles Times today issued an official retraction for a story published on the basis of a now-discredited source.
The Times already apologized for the story on March 27 (see Warner Todd Huston NB post here).
Here's an excerpt of the April 7 retraction notice:
An article and related materials published on the Los Angeles Times website on March 17 have been removed from the site because they relied heavily on information that The Times no longer believes to be credible.
The article, titled "An Attack on Tupac Shakur Launched a Hip-Hop War" and written by Times staff writer Chuck Philips, purported to relate "new" information about a 1994 assault on rap star Tupac Shakur, including a description of events contained in FBI reports.
The Times has since concluded that the FBI reports were fabricated and that some of the other sources relied on -- including the person Philips previously believed to be the "confidential source" cited in the FBI reports -- do not support major elements of the story.
