A brief addendum to one of the editorials in today's San Diego Union-Tribune got the media critic in me thinking.

A final important note: There is something disturbing about the Los Angeles Times asserting in its first two tape-leak stories that it had “obtained” the tape, implying that its acquisition was the result of journalistic initiative. There is something even more disturbing about this passage in the third Times story on the matter: “Administration officials declined to say whether they believe that the governor's staff was involved in leaking” the audiotape.

If the Times knew the identity of the provider of the tape – as seems extraordinarily likely – but still floated this grossly misleading theory, that is a scandal in its own right.

A look at the Times coverage of the tape mini-scandal shows that the editorial writer has a point.

In the Times' first story on the tape, the reporter writes that:

The governor is heard on a six-minute recording, obtained by The Times, of a meeting with some members of his inner circle last spring. [emphasis added]

The Times' second story uses almost identical wording on the tape's provenance:

The six-minute recording, obtained by The Times, captures a meeting with some members of the governor's inner circle last spring.

The Times' third story again uses a similar formulation.

The Times obtained a copy of the audio recording and published the governor's remarks on its website Thursday evening and in the newspaper Friday.

I concur with the Union-Tribune editorial writer's take that the use of the term "obtained" does imply that the paper actively went out and got this tape. With all of the story out there now -- that staffers for Schwarzenegger's Democratic rival Phil Angelides peddled the tape to the paper -- the proper term to use in those first few stories was "provided," not "obtained."

In the grand scheme of things, that word choice is a trifle. What's troubling is that the Times wasn't forthright in how it got the tape -- and is defending its deception of its readers.

David Garcia, director of media relations for the Los Angeles Times, reiterated Tuesday that the newspaper "does not reveal its confidential news sources."

That's perfectly acceptable. But according to the first three stories, there were no "confidential news sources," the implication was that the Times' reporters got this on their own. The proper and ethical way to describe the provenance of the tape is to write that "the tape was provided to the Times by people opposed to Gov. Schwarzenegger's re-election." Confidentiality is given to the source(s) and the paper's credibility, trustworthiness and honesty isn't called into question.

What's really outrageous about the Times' behavior is this paragraph from yesterday's Times story.

Administration officials declined to say whether they believe that the governor's staff was involved in leaking the recorded exchanges among the governor, his chief of staff, a speechwriter and a speech coach. Workers at a private transcription service that handled the recording did not appear to be involved, they said.

This unattributed allegation must have come from the reporter, otherwise it would be attributed -- heck they didn't even use the ubiquitous "some," as in "some say" or "some allege." But the Times knew this wasn't the case. The Times knew who provided them with the tape -- and that it wasn't anyone in the governor's office. It was irresponsible at best and unethical and dishonest at worst for this paragraph to appear in the paper.

Now, I'm going to offer a possible explanation for how this happened, but it's not going to make the editors running the Times look any better.

The first few stories describing the audiotape were written by either Robert Salladay and/or Michael Finnegan. One or both of these reporters were likely given the tape by Angelides staffers, they worked closely together and knew where it came from. The story with the false flag paragraph suggesting that Schwarzenegger's staff might have something to do with this was written by Nancy Vogel. Vogel's byline doesn't appear again on this subject until the story where Angelides camp fesses up.

I suspect that while Salladay and/or Finnegan knew the source of the tape, Vogel did not. In this situation, I can understand Vogel asking whether the leak came from someone on Schwarzenegger's own staff. This situation would clear Vogel, but it doesn't clear the editors on this story. Some editors had to have known the reporters' source -- to not know is dereliction of duty. Knowing the source, the editors shouldn't have let their reporter unwittingly cast suspicion where they knew it didn't belong.

If your paper has been attacked in the past for having it in for Schwarzenegger, then you'd normally want to bring the utmost scrutiny to bear on controversial stories involving the governor to make sure you've got it right. (Of course, this approach dismisses out of hand the possibility that the reporters, editors, et. al are liberal and don't care about even trying to feign objectivity -- that can be debated at a later time.) These stories had to have been vetted at the highest levels of management at the Times before they were published -- and that's where the blame belongs.