{"id":262477,"date":"2026-04-11T09:31:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-11T09:31:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/262477\/"},"modified":"2026-04-11T09:31:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-11T09:31:09","slug":"dubious-acts-by-popular-long-beach-writer-span-14-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/262477\/","title":{"rendered":"Dubious acts by popular Long Beach writer span 14 years –"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Main<\/a> <\/p>\n

By the time he announced<\/a> his return to the Long Beach Post in 2018, Brian Addison had become one of Long Beach\u2019s most professionally successful and widely-read writers, with work featured by KCET, the LA Weekly, the OC Weekly, and the Long Beach Business Journal \u2014 not to mention his website Longbeachize.com, which he noted was receiving 85,000 visitors per month.<\/p>\n

He spoke with gratitude of his writing career, which he said was \u201clargely a part of Long Beach itself and, in this sense every piece of news is inherently connected to both its author and the community it is about.\u201d And he valorized good journalism, which he noted is \u201cpaired with a trust from the community \u2014 and in a time when social media dominates the interpretation and consumption of news in such a way that it puts everyone, myself included, into philosophical silos, good local journalism is a crucial cog in the functioning of our future.\u201d<\/p>\n

Considering Addison\u2019s prominence in the local media landscape, a recent flap about his ethical failings opened up a discussion of what kind of a cog he\u2019s been. Because those failings have recurred again and again.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

On March 16, Addison wrote about a possible new business venture from the owners of Gusto Bread<\/a>. A day later, Gusto Bread created a post<\/a> on Facebook and elsewhere apparently referencing the article, though without naming Addison, saying in part:<\/p>\n

The information shared in [the] recent article was not corroborated by us, nor were we interviewed. The person who wrote it also did not inform us beforehand that he was writing the article. [\u2026 W]e reached out and kindly asked that the article be removed. But our request has been refused[,] citing \u201cjournalistic ethics.\u201d<\/p>\n

The post goes on to cite other ethical concerns with the article: \u201cOne photo of the construction site could only have been taken by someone who entered without permission. Another photo (although credited to the author) is sourced from someone else\u2019s Yelp review of our business, badly edited by AI to remove our employee and the photographer\u2019s reflection in the original image.\u201d (Random Lengths News has verified the latter allegation.)<\/p>\n

Because Gusto Bread has become a beloved Long Beach institution with national acclaim<\/a>, condemnation from the community<\/a> was swift. Addison initially addressed this \u201codd explosion\u201d in Long Beach Food Scene, a large Facebook group he moderates, protesting \u201cI did reach out to Gusto for my piece\u201d (although his own text history with Gusto, which he shared online ostensibly to support this claim, shows only a single inquiry (\u201cAny further info on the Caf\u00e9 Cuate project in DTLB?\u201d) a mere four hours before his article went live \u2014 exactly what he did in 2023 regarding the pending closure of MADE in Long Beach).<\/p>\n

However, by March 19 he had shifted into damage-control mode, removing the article and issuing a mea culpa<\/a> in Long Beach Food Scene:<\/p>\n

So, I come humbly \u2014 genuinely. And I admit: I let my passions and ego get the best of me and I apologize. Sincerely. Woke up with a clear head and heard you loud and clear. I was contradicting even my own standards \u2014 and I can\u2019t tell you how much I appreciate the comments, be they critical, supportive, or, even more, both. [\u00b6] My only intention is to support and uplift my community \u2014 and my actions clearly did not do that. As always: Eat well, be kind.<\/p>\n

But over the course of his journalistic career, Addison\u2019s \u201cstandards\u201d have sometimes allowed for writing articles without conducting basic research, failing to correct factual errors even after being made aware of them, fabrication, and plagiarism.<\/p>\n

I first became aware of Addison\u2019s willingness to cross such ethical lines during my time with him at the Long Beach Post. In February 2012, an article<\/a> by the late Bill Pearl, publisher of LBReport.com, alleged that the Post had run a press release from then-State Senator Alan Lowenthal\u2019s office regarding SB 1243 as if it were original Post content, with the byline \u201cBrian Addison.\u201d Pearl\u2019s article included a side-by-side comparison of the press release and Addison\u2019s article<\/a>, which were identical, save for cosmetic changes to the first two paragraphs (namely, shuffling around a half-dozen words in the opening line, the addition of an Oxford comma, and the removal of a comma and quotation marks from around \u201cgas stations\u201d). Stunned, I tracked down the press release to independently verify Pearl\u2019s claim: it was true.<\/p>\n

Although typically plagiarism is a capital offense in the world of journalism, resulting in immediate termination of the guilty party, Addison\u2019s services were retained, and much to my chagrin it became accepted practice for the Post to run press releases as news articles \u2014 sometimes with a slightly reworded opening line, sometimes verbatim, always without attribution. Because the usual byline was \u201cStaff Reports,\u201d I could not be certain that Addison was always the culprit; however, his LinkedIn description<\/a> of his Post duties at the time includes \u201cOversee and execute published content,\u201d which is accurate.<\/p>\n

In May 2012, I stumbled across an even worse instance of plagiarism while copy editing the Post\u2019s print edition, which was among my duties at the time. Reviewing a \u201cStaff Reports\u201d article concerning a no-hitter thrown by a Long Beach City College pitcher, I thought it could do with a bit more detail (as far as I was aware, some \u201cStaff Reports\u201d articles were content original to the Post). In attempting to obtain additional information from LBCC, I came across the exact same article<\/a>, published anonymously on the LBCC webpage dedicated to its sports program. With the Post reduced to a skeleton crew at this time, Addison was the only person in a position to engineer the misappropriation of the LBCC article. I brought the matter to Post co-founder\/publisher Shaun Lumachi\u2019s widow, Dezir\u00e9 (filling in as best she could to keep the Post afloat after Shaun\u2019s tragic death despite no journalistic inclinations of her own), apprising her of Addison\u2019s pertinent history of such actions, and received permission to kill the story for the print edition. However, the article had already been posted to LBPost.com \u2014 with an alternative headline (a meager attempt to disguise the plagiarism?) \u2014 where it remains to this day<\/a>.<\/p>\n

(Sidenote: One of the first stories I wrote for Random Lengths News was on the Post\u2019s history of such misattribution<\/a>, wherein I mistakenly situated Addison\u2019s plagiarism of the Lowenthal press release as taking place in 2011 due to Pearl\u2019s piece\u2019s being erroneously dated 2011. The 2012 date of Addison\u2019s \u201carticle\u201d can be cross-referenced with articles about SB 1243 in other local publications, along with pertinent California legislative records re SB 1243, to confirm that 2012 is the correct year.)<\/p>\n

In the years after I left the Post in 2013, when asked about Addison, typically I would confine my remarks to something along the lines of, \u201cWell, he sure is an enthusiastic cheerleader for Long Beach\u201d (absolutely true), hoping against hope that, as he matured and gained experience, he would move beyond such ethical lapses. And on occasion I appreciated his work, such as a 2017 Longbeachize piece<\/a> (which I shared on Facebook) criticizing a tone-deaf satirical(?) video by Grunion Gazette Executive Editor Harry Saltzgaver suggesting we put on a \u201chomeless mobile home\u201d contest. But generally I wasn\u2019t a fan and so wasn\u2019t keeping tabs on his progress.<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, grumblings about his \u201cstandards\u201d would reach me from time to time, and occasionally I did come across evidence that his lapses persisted. A prime example came on October 30, 2018, when I saw an article<\/a> Addison penned for the Post on the closure of Linden Public, an East Village Arts District coffeehouse. As an almost-daily patron of Linden Public until literally the day it went out of business, it was readily apparent to me that not only had Addison made no effort to obtain the facts, he even created out-and-out fiction:<\/p>\n

He stated that Linden Public closed in October; it had actually shuttered in September.He named Hend Elarabi as Linden Public\u2019s owner, when in fact she had sold the business more than six months previous, as even cursory fact-checking would have revealed.He claimed that \u201cmultiple closures labeled as \u2018remodeling\u2019 [took place] this year. In fact, a remodeling notice still hangs in the window below the space\u2019s new leasing signs.\u201d While two closures had occurred (making \u201cmultiple\u201d a technically correct exaggeration), it was a complete fabrication to say that \u201ca remodeling notice still hangs in the window\u201d: that notice (actually located well inside the building \u2014 his own picture shows no such notice where he describes) was not put up until after the closure. Prior to that, the last remodeling notice had been taken down over two years earlier after Elarabi rebranded The Greenhouse as Linden Public.<\/p>\n

In my own Facebook post and in the comments section of his, I noted these issues, and at least one other commenter on his post joined me in pointing out that Elarabi had not owned Linden Public for over half a year. But rather than acknowledge this, Addison deleted our comments and made no corrections to the article.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

Because I\u2019ve never laid eyes on the vast majority of what Addison has written, I\u2019m in no position to comment on additional allegations of ethical shortcomings and how rare or frequent such acts may be. (I\u2019m told a forthcoming Long Beach Watchdog<\/a> piece will further explore this terrain.) For his part, Addison did not reply to multiple requests to comment for this article. But regarding the Yelp photo of Gusto Bread he credited to himself, Addison said (in response to criticism in the comments of his Long Beach Food Scene mea culpa) this was a simple mistake, that he placed it there as \u201ca holder image in the hopes I get [sic] my own of the same style \u2014 and I didn\u2019t have time.\u201d He averred that he \u201cnever intended to reuse a photo and claim it as my own. [\u2026 A]s a photographer who has had my own stuff stolen, I get it.\u201d<\/p>\n

If that\u2019s true, we might wonder why he would give an extensive digital makeover to a \u201cholder image,\u201d as well as how exactly the same thing happened just four days earlier. For a March 12 news item<\/a> about The Hare, Addison apparently took someone else\u2019s photo<\/a> (Beveldine Stained Glass, showing off their handiwork [really nice!] for The Hare), digitally edited it (warping and eradicating some of The Hare\u2019s architectural features in the process), and claimed \u201cPhoto by Brian Addison\u201d in the caption. (Random Lengths News has confirmed that Addison did not shoot the Beveldine photo, nor did he obtain permission to use the image, AI-altered or otherwise.)<\/p>\n

Considering that Addison\u2019s recent ethical lapses comport with earlier failings, there no longer seems to be any point in not spotlighting them in the hope that he will self-correct. To piggyback on his mea culpa, I too believe in supporting and uplifting my community \u2014 and openly discussing the quality and integrity of the reportage in and about my community seems to me a means to that end. Because I could not agree more with what he wrote in 2018: \u201cgood local journalism is a crucial cog in the functioning of our future.\u201d<\/p>\n

We rely on local journalists to faithfully inform us about what they see in our community, and we trust \u2014 or want to trust \u2014 the integrity of their work. But who watches the watchers? Maybe that\u2019s something I heard on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, or a newspaper motto, or an ethicomoral philosophical chestnut \u2014 but who cares, because seriously: who? Maybe the answer is: we watch (and watch out for) each other. Maybe we hold each other \u2014 and ourselves \u2014 accountable. Maybe it\u2019s up to us.<\/p>\n

Addison himself apparently agrees. His piece on the Saltzgaver video is one example. Another came just four months ago, when he took to Long Beach Food Scene to \u201crant\u201d to his 90,000+ group members against the Post (from which he had been fired \u2014 for the second time \u2014 four years earlier) because \u201cit is worth stating out loud [that] the egregious way in which the Long Beach Post approached small businesses is outright unethical.\u201d The specific allegation that triggered his diatribe was not that the Post had engaged in anything as serious as reporting false information or plagiarism, but that they did not comply with a restaurant\u2019s request to hold off publishing a story about forthcoming changes to their business. \u201cThere was zero need for [the Post] to rush this story,\u201d Addison wrote<\/a>, \u201cor force it out when business transactions were on the line. [\u2026 T]his charade that they are \u2018community-centric\u2019 is, at this point, absolutely absurd.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maybe your journalistic integrity is nobody\u2019s business if what you\u2019re doing is for a private newsletter with a circulation of 50 (although isn\u2019t scope \u2014 or subject matter, or whether the person\/company you\u2019re writing about is paying you<\/a> \u2014 beside the point?). But when you admin a public forum with a membership size equivalent to 20% of the population of Long Beach (U.S. Rank by Pop. (2020 census): #41), when you\u2019ve got 175,000 followers across your socials, when you run a website claiming to be \u201cUpholding authentic and community-centric integrity\u201d that you yourself say is \u201cmore than just a media outlet; it\u2019s a community hub\u201d with readers who are \u201cpassionate, [and] want to be informed,\u201d maybe it is somebody else\u2019s business. Maybe it\u2019s the community\u2019s business.<\/p>\n

Love him or hate him, Brian Addison is a prominent part of our local media landscape. And although his primary beat is the food scene, he regularly writes about more \u201cnewsy\u201d issues such as housing, commercial development, and City of Long Beach projects and policy. In 2024, he received multiple Absolute Best of Long Beach Awards. Last year he was feted<\/a> by Downtown Long Beach Associates for being a \u201cDistinguished journalist\u201d whose work is \u201cenriching\u201d downtown. And let\u2019s say it again: he sure is an enthusiastic cheerleader for Long Beach. But in a city that is vastly underserved journalistically, Addison enjoys an outsized presence \u2014 deserved or otherwise.<\/p>\n

At least one community member concerned about the integrity of local journalism has hurled a pointed epithet Addison\u2019s way: \u201cUnethical blogger.\u201d Addison was amused enough to use it as a self-descriptor on his Facebook and Instagram pages \u2014 quotation marks inclusive, tongue firmly in cheek.<\/p>\n

Considering certain aspects of his journalistic record, for some the irony is impossible to miss.<\/p>\n

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