In April 2016, a salacious tip arrived at the L.A. Times to reporter Paul Pringle: a drug overdose at a fancy hotel involving one of the University of Southern California’s shiniest stars―Dr. Carmen Puliafito, the head of the prestigious medical school. Pringle, who’d long done battle with USC and its almost impenetrable culture of silence, knew reporting the story wouldn’t be a walk in the park. USC is one of the biggest employers in L.A., and it casts a long shadow.
Pringle’s fast-paced book is a master class in investigative journalism, explaining how a reporter wrestles information and documents from reluctant sources and government officials. It is a stark look at the weakening of local news, especially at The Los Angeles Times ... a compelling version of this narrative that one can rip through in a few long afternoons at the beach ... Pringle doesn’t let the reader linger on the salacious details without considering the many ways that unchecked power fosters depravity and corruption, a shopworn idea that seems to have fresh relevance in 2022, when abuse of authority is on the rise and checks on that abuse seem ever less likely to win out ... Pringle delivers his account in a torrent of sharp storytelling and righteous score-settling that might seem petty if the stakes were not so grave.
... part exposé, part primer on investigative journalism, part saga about the abuse of power. At its heart, it is the story of a whistleblower and a newsroom trying to do the right thing against great odds ... It also reflects the challenges of the modern media landscape and the intense discussions surrounding the media’s traditional role of holding the powerful accountable.
Behind-the-scenes account ... The bad guys in Pringle’s book are real, but it’s not always clear if he knows who they are. He spends nearly as much time writing about his conflicts with top editors at the Los Angeles Times as he does the doctors at the heart of the book ... He spends an inordinate amount of time on what feels like score settling with the newspaper’s former top editors ... This ugly tit-for-tat overshadows the real villains of the book. Pringle is at his best when he focuses on the doctors.
