{"id":492679,"date":"2026-10-11T14:40:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-11T14:40:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/492679\/"},"modified":"2026-10-11T14:40:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-11T14:40:10","slug":"a-reporter-on-why-the-l-a-city-hall-audio-leak-scandal-should-still-matter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/492679\/","title":{"rendered":"A reporter on why the L.A. City Hall audio leak scandal should still matter"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Do you remember what you were doing when the infamous L.A. City Hall racist audio leak scandal<\/a> broke four years ago?<\/p>\n

I always will: I was naked.<\/p>\n

You’re reading the Essential California newsletter <\/p>\n

L.A. Times reporters guide you through the most important news, features and recommendations of the morning.<\/p>\n

By continuing, you agree to our Terms of Service<\/a>, which include arbitration and a class action waiver. You agree that we and our third-party vendors may collect and use your information, including through cookies, pixels and similar technologies, for the purposes set forth in our Privacy Policy<\/a> such as personalizing your experience and ads. <\/p>\n

Sunday morning, Oct. 9, 2022, around 8 a.m., I was about to take a shower when I decided to check my cellphone one more time. Thank God I did: If I hadn\u2019t, I would\u2019ve been half an hour late on assisting in one of the most explosive stories ever to hit L.A. politics.<\/p>\n

Via Slack, Times assistant managing editor Steve Clow asked if I could serve as a second set of ears on audio that my colleagues had unearthed involving four of the most powerful L.A. pol\u00edticos<\/a> at the time: City Council President Nury Martinez, Councilmembers Gil Cedillo and Kevin de Le\u00f3n, and L.A. County Federation of Labor President Ron Herrera. I was still in my birthday suit (sorry for the visual, gentle readers, but I\u2019m sworn to report the facts on this job) when I played the snippet Clow shared: Martinez describing the Black son of then-Councilmember Mike Bonin<\/a> as \u201csu negrito\u201d \u2014 his darky.<\/p>\n

I put on my shorts and told my wife I wouldn\u2019t be helping at her restaurant that day.<\/p>\n

Clow sent me more clips<\/a> over the next hour, each crasser than the other \u2014 I remember gasping audibly at the part when the four were laughing as Martinez referred to Oaxacans as \u201cugly.\u201d That morning, my colleagues Benjamin Oreskes, Dakota Smith, Julia Wick and David Zahniser<\/a> published their first story on the fiasco, which turned out to be a secretly recorded conversation from a year earlier that someone had posted on Reddit just the day before.<\/p>\n

The scandal quickly became a national sensation, with even then-President Joe Biden weighing in<\/a>. L.A. wretched in collective disgust and demanded action, which definitely came: Martinez and Herrera quickly resigned, while Cedillo \u2014 who had already lost his reelection bid \u2014 would stay on until his bitter end, and De Le\u00f3n wouldn\u2019t leave until challenger Ysabel Jurado destroyed him in his 2024 reelection bid<\/a>. The electoral repercussions of the audio leak can still be felt four years later in this election, as Nithya Raman stages a strong challenge against incumbent Karen Bass \u2014 a sentence no one would\u2019ve believed in the fall of 2022, when Bass was on the cusp of winning her first term, and Raman was the lone democratic socialist on the council.<\/p>\n

I would\u2019ve figured the anniversary of something as titanic as all of the above would\u2019ve sparked more commemorations than just my columna this week<\/a>. Nope! L.A. has moved on to the point that Cedillo wasn\u2019t booted from a group photo that included current District 9 council candidate Jose Ugarte, former Assemblymember Wendy Carrillo, former Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and current Assemblymember Mark Gonzalez \u2014 because even Chicanosauruses can survive a political asteroid, I guess? <\/p>\n

Having political leaders spew racist, homophobic nonsense now seems like the good ol\u2019 days in an era where infernos destroy<\/a> or stink up<\/a> swaths of L.A., immigration agents terrorize immigrants from Westwood<\/a> to the Eastside, and a spokesperson for a sitting American president denies<\/a> that the commander in chief suggested Iran bomb the City of Angels<\/a>, even though he said it during a campaign rally. <\/p>\n

I shouldn\u2019t really be surprised, I guess: L.A. infamously loves to forget its own history. But I would urge all you readers to read the great, Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage<\/a> my colleagues did in the aftermath of the audio leak scandal, because it captured the city at its worst \u2014 but also its finest as residents fought back and demanded politicians do better.<\/p>\n

Four years later, we can only hope this upcoming election shows more of the same.<\/p>\n

The week\u2019s biggest stories \"A <\/a> <\/p>\n

Domenic Hix looks back as a large wave crashes on the shoreline in Laguna Beach on Friday.<\/p>\n

(Allen J. Schaben \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n

Tropical Storm Rachel in SoCalCalifornia real estateCalifornia crimeIn memoriamMore newsEditor\u2019s pickMore picksThings to do \"Photo <\/a> <\/p>\n

(Illustrations by Lindsey Made This; photograph by Charles Phoenix)<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s recipe \"Apple <\/a> <\/p>\n

(Rebecca Peloquin \/ For The Times)<\/p>\n

This recipe makes apple butter<\/a> that is less sweet than most; use more sugar if you like, but don\u2019t use less or there won\u2019t be enough to properly preserve the pureed apples. <\/p>\n

Photo of the day \"Meals <\/a> <\/p>\n

(Stephanie Breijo \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n

Games \"Mini <\/p>\n

Here\u2019s today\u2019s mini crossword<\/a>, plus our other free, daily crossword puzzle, sudoku, word search and jigsaw games<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Have a great day, from the Essential California team<\/p>\n

Jack Dolan, investigative reporter
Hugo Mart\u00edn, assistant editor, fast break desk
Kevinisha Walker, multiplatform editor
Andrew Campa, weekend writer
Karim Doumar, head of newsletters<\/p>\n

How can we make this newsletter more useful? Send comments to essentialcalifornia@latimes.com<\/a>. Check our top stories<\/a>, topics<\/a> and the latest articles<\/a> on latimes.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Do you remember what you were doing when the infamous L.A. City Hall racist audio leak scandal broke…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":492680,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[7,2299,1085,891,2300,2297,340,2303,48,52,51,47,50,49,63,2302,1086,1459,2301,2298,74,225,315,688],"class_list":["post-492679","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-california","tag-civic-revolt","tag-covid","tag-covid-19","tag-days","tag-essential-california","tag-israel","tag-l-a","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-los-angeles-times","tag-may","tag-pandemic","tag-part","tag-president-biden","tag-red-county","tag-san-diego","tag-state","tag-time","tag-years"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/492679","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=492679"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/492679\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/492680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=492679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=492679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=492679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}