According to a court filing by the Los Angeles Times, the secret origin of my firing last summer was a secret meeting between the chief of police of Los Angeles, Charlie Beck, and the publisher at the time, a billionaire named Austin Beutner who had political ambitions. Beck gave Beutner an audio recording full of noise and static that purported to show that I had lied about an incident that I had written about. Later on of course, I was able to have the recording analyzed and it showed that I had been telling the truth. This cartoon shows how that meeting would have gone had the publisher adhered to basic journalistic principles.
