Top LA journalist fires back at ghostwriting allegations: ‘A smear campaign’

Read the original at New York Post ↗
Cite

Farr, D. (2026, October 28). Top LA journalist fires back at ghostwriting allegations: ‘A smear campaign’. New York Post. https://nypost.com/2026/10/27/us-news/top-la-journalist-denies-state-senator-ghostwrote-stories-for-la-taco/

Dated from the outlet's own feed. Check the original for its byline.

New York Post · collected 2026-10-28 · by Daniel Farr

Quick Summary

Memo Torres, a former journalist at LA TACO, denies allegations that California state Sen. Sasha Renee Perez ghostwrote his articles, calling them a "complete lie." In a Substack post, Torres acknowledges briefly dating Perez but insists she never wrote or edited any of his pieces and claims an internal investigation found no misconduct. LA TACO fired Torres over alleged policy violations he disputes, saying the publication wanted to reduce coverage of ICE raids, which he prioritized as urgent journalism.
Written locally by qwen2.5:14b on 2026-10-28, using this article's own text rather than the other coverage of the same event (that is the story summary below).

AI analysis runs on qwen2.5:14b, locally

Story summary

Fired Los Angeles journalist Memo Torres, 46, has denied allegations that California state Sen. Sasha Renee Perez helped ghostwrite his articles or controlled his reporting at LA TACO, calling the accusations "a smear campaign." In a Substack post, Torres acknowledged dating Perez briefly in early 2026 but stated she never wrote or edited any of his pieces. Torres claimed both LA TACO's owner Alex Bloomingdale and editor Javier Cabral were aware of his relationship with Perez from the start and that his work was reviewed to ensure there was no favoritism towards her.

Written for “Top LA Journalist Defends Against Ghostwriting Claims” on 2026-10-28, grounded in this article and the 0 other(s) covering the same event.
Why this leaning score
The model judged this article politically coded and scored it -0.35, but all 2 of its quote(s) are attributed speech - words the article quotes from someone, not the article's own narration, so the score is not published.
Written under an earlier scoring contract, which gave a paragraph rather than checkable quotes. Re-analysing this article replaces it.
Leaning score withheld for article 111022: attributed speech only · logged 2026-10-28

Story

📰 Top LA Journalist Defends Against Ghostwriting Claims
Crime & Law · 1 article(s) covering the same event.

Compared with similar articles

This article reads unscored and hedges 13% of its claims. Each row says how that neighbour differs.
New York Post
⚖️ leaning not scored 🔴 18% hedged 9 of 49 📰 publisher trust 66
“While both articles discuss Memo Torres being fired from LA TACO and allegations involving a Democratic senator, Article B focuses on Torres's denial of the allegations and his response to being fired, while Article A reports on the firing and allegations without including Torres's side.”
How this article was measured signals, leaning charts, publisher record, byline, topics and claims

Signals How these are calculated →

Claims extracted
15
sentences that state something as happening or true
Uncertain
13%
2 of 15 hedged ("reportedly", "may", "according to")
Leaning
withheld
no quote in the article backed the model's score
Publisher signals
66/100
New York Post's corrections and hedging, across everything collected from it. Not a measure of accuracy.
Outlets on this story
1
Crime & Law
Same framing elsewhere
1
articles that frame the event the way this one does
Analyzed 2026-10-28 · how these are computed

How this is being covered How these are calculated →

Article leaning vs. publisher reliability
Source leaning vs. consistency

Publisher

New York Post · 14366 article(s) · 35 correction(s) detected
Running correction rate · 35 correction(s)

Who wrote this

Daniel Farr
101 article(s) here · 0 carrying a prediction
🔮 Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass rolled out relief for residents struggling with utility bills, while her challenger, Nithya Raman, pressed for an audit of the city’s power and water department. Sign up for the California Morning Report newsletter The biggest news, opinion and culture shaping California right now. Thanks for signing up!
🔮 The website says the checks were written before York’s arrest and that recipients have not said whether they will return them.
🔮 Los Angeles’ mayoral race has turned into a multimillion-dollar mudslinging match, with deep-pocketed unions, wealthy donors and police groups flooding the airwaves with ads ahead of Election Day.
🔮 The investigation followed a warning from forecasters Wednesday that a brief tornado was a remote possibility as a storm system moved toward Southern California.
🔮 Los Angeles’ left-leaning City Council wants to explore launching a government-run bank despite the city facing a projected $100 million budget gap — drawing a blistering rebuke from one councilmember who questioned whether City Hall can handle its own finances.
🔮 Los Angeles mayoral hopeful Nithya Raman was left scrambling when asked to name a police chief she admires — an awkward moment for the councilwoman already facing blowback over her praise of controversial former LAPD Chief Daryl Gates.
🔮 The probe also turned up another troubling wrinkle, detectives learned Salceda may have operated under multiple identities in an effort to evade law enforcement.
🔮 A convicted rapist could be turned loose into a wealthy California town near schools and a Girl Scout camp — as the local sheriff is fighting to keep the sexually violent predator from moving in.
🔮 The confusion spilled into the registrar’s office in Visalia last week, when residents called and showed up in person, worried they could be accused of attempting to vote twice.
🔮 Former Los Angeles mayoral candidate Rick Caruso expressed “extreme concern” over Nithya Raman’s plans for the LAPD if elected mayor while attending an event with Karen Bass Tuesday — but stopped short of endorsing the incumbent.
Also by Daniel Farr
Nothing else under this byline is closely related to this article, so these are simply their most recent.
All 101 articles by Daniel Farr →

Topics

Bloomingdale California ICE LA TACO LA TACO’s

Subjects

Torres PERSON · 9× ICE ORG · 4× Perez PERSON · 3× Bloomingdale ORG · 2× California GPE · 2× LA TACO ORG · 2× LA TACO’s ORG · 2× Los Angeles GPE · 1× Memo Torres PERSON · 1× Sasha Renee Perez PERSON · 1×

Narrative

Torres, 46, acknowledged in a new Substack post that he briefly dated the Democratic lawmaker in early 2026 but flatly denied she ever wrote or controlled his reporting, calling the accusations, “a smear campaign on my name, my work, my ethics, and my integrity.” “At no time did Senator Perez write any article under my byline, nor did she ever have access to edit, submit or publish any of my articles or Daily Memos,” Torres wrote.
framing: assertive · carried by 1 article(s) · first seen 2026-10-28

Claims (15 extracted, 2 hedged)

Fired Los Angeles journalist Memo Torres is fighting back against allegations that California state Sen. Sasha Renee Perez helped ghostwrite his stories, calling the accusations a “complete lie” as his ugly split with LA TACO erupts into a public war of words. asserted
split → fire → words
Torres, 46, acknowledged in a new Substack post that he briefly dated the Democratic lawmaker in early 2026 but flatly denied she ever wrote or controlled his reporting, calling the accusations, “a smear campaign on my name, my work, my ethics, and my integrity.” “At no time did Senator Perez write any article under my byline, nor did she ever have access to edit, submit or publish any of my articles or Daily Memos,” Torres wrote. asserted
Torres → acknowledge → articles
The immigration reporter claimed LA TACO’s top brass knew about the romance from the start. asserted
brass → claim → start
Owner and co-founder Alex Bloomingdale and Editor-in-Chief Javier Cabral were both aware of the relationship, Torres said, and the outlet reviewed his stories to ensure he wasn’t giving Perez preferential treatment. asserted
he → say → treatment
Torres also cited a written message from Bloomingdale following an internal review. asserted
Torres → cite → review
“we did an internal investigation and found that nothing inappropriate happened, no coverage was altered, etc,” Torres claimed Bloomingdale wrote to him. asserted
Bloomingdale → do → him
The fiery defense follows LA TACO’s decision to fire Torres over what the publication described as repeated violations of its policies and journalistic standards. asserted
publication → follow → policies
The outlet’s internal process reportedly followed nearly five months of discussions, according to LA Material. uncertain
process → follow → Material
Torres also blasted claims that he refused to take responsibility, accusing sources close to his former employer of lying and arguing that Perez was being unfairly dragged into the controversy. uncertain
Perez → blast → controversy
Download The California Post App, follow us on social, and subscribe to our newsletters He said his decision to leave ultimately centered around what he claimed was a choice by the outlet to scale back coverage of Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids across Southern California — something LA Taco denies. asserted
Taco → download → California
“Despite what they say to the public, they absolutely wanted to lessen ICE reporting, something I actively voiced I was not happy about,” Torres wrote. asserted
Torres → say → reporting
“The rumor that we’ve turned our back on ICE coverage is a lie. asserted
we → turn → coverage
And a dangerous one,” the publication said Saturday. asserted
publication → say → ?
Torres, whose reporting has focused heavily on ICE activity, said the controversy threatens to distract from work he considers urgent as the midterms approach. asserted
midterms → focus → work
He described the ICE surge as worse than ever and insisted the reporting cannot wait. asserted
reporting → describe → surge
💬Give feedback
🕘History 🎫Support