Business
Column: Chuck Philips (1952-2024) singlehandedly made music industry journalism better
Few people outside the music industry may know the name Chuck Philips, but few inside the industry will forget it.
As the leading music industry investigative reporter of his generation and a mainstay of Times entertainment coverage for more than a decade, Chuck aimed to force a celebrity-driven corner of journalism into taking seriously how the pursuit of money by industry bigwigs often left the artists themselves at the side of the road.
He may not have entirely succeeded — the coverage of celebrity lives is still a fundamental feature of music writing — but he set a standard that has seldom been matched. Chuck died last month at 71.
“There are two ways to look at investigative reporting in the world of pop music journalism,” says Robert Hilburn, who as The Times’ pop music critic and pop music editor began publishing Chuck’s freelanced stories in the 1980s. “There’s pre-Chuck Philips and post-Chuck Philips. Before Chuck, the coverage, nationally, was mostly timid and sporadic. Chuck turned it into something relentless and uncompromising.”
That’s a global perspective. Here’s a personal perspective, drawn from my working with Chuck on investigations of the music industry in 1998 that won us the Pulitzer Prize: Chuck was the most tenacious, scrupulous and principled journalist I’ve ever known.
There are two ways to look at investigative reporting in the world of pop music journalism. There’s pre-Chuck Philips and post-Chuck Philips.
— Former Times pop music editor Robert Hilburn
I had an elite Ivy League journalism degree and he held a baccalaureate in journalism from Cal State Long Beach and, before joining The Times, had been running a silk-screening business.
After we were paired on our project I stood in awe of his skill at interviewing reluctant subjects, identifying the crux of a tough story, and pursuing it wherever it led, while his rigorous sense of probity and commitment to fairness earned him the trust and respect even of industry executives who knew they were about to be skewered. I learned more from our partnership than I did with anyone else I’ve worked with over a long career.
Hilburn relates that in the early 1980s, he saw the need for a reporter to supplement the reviews and features that made up the bulk of pop coverage with reporting on the business side of the industry.
“There was no place in the budget to hire a reporter,” Hilburn told me, “so I put out the word that I was looking for a free-lance, but the field was so barren that only one person responded.”
It was Chuck Philips, who had “scant experience as a reporter — just a few stories for local music publications. Yet he had an intelligence and desire in our first meeting that stood out. Unable to hire him, I took money allocated for reviews and features to pay him by the story.”
He started with a couple of stories covering a censorship case in Florida that confronted the rap group 2 Live Crew with possible criminal and obscenity charges involving its debut album. “But Chuck didn’t just stop there, he did more than a dozen follow-up stories as new developments arose,” Hilburn said.
Few stories illustrated the compassion and empathy for recording artists that infused Chuck’s work like his coverage of the Milli Vanilli scandal in 1990. Largely forgotten now, the duo of Rob Pilatus and Fabrice Morvan had burst onto the music scene with a 1988 album titled “Girl You Know It’s True.”
The single by that name soared to No. 1 on the Billboard charts. The dreadlocked break dancers, whom Chuck later described as “a sharp-dressing dance duo on the Munich club and fashion-show circuit,” became a worldwide sensation, winning the award for best new artist at the 1989 Grammys.
The truth was that they hadn’t sung a note on the album or on stage, but lip-synced on stage and on videos to tracks laid down by freelance vocalists. They were outed at a news conference by Frank Farian, their own Germany-based producer, who evidently was trying to undercut their insistence on singing on a forthcoming release by destroying their credibility.
“Rob” and “Fab” were showered with vilification and ridicule in the music press. Not in Chuck’s stories, however. He saw clearly that they were the victims in a scam perpetrated by Farian and abetted by what his reporting indicated was the willful blindness, if not the knowing consent, of their American label, Clive Davis’ Arista Records.
A few days after the story broke, the performers granted their first joint interview to Chuck, who showed how they had been ruthlessly manipulated by industry figures who unaccountably escaped with their fortunes and reputations intact. Underlying the fiasco, he wrote, was “the record industry’s myth-making machine built with a recording technology capable of deceit and operated by men who chose to deceive.”
In 1995, The Times finally hired him for its full-time business staff. For Chuck, covering the music industry was not about quick hits or superficial celebrity-driven stories to be turned around in a day or two, but a determined effort to gain the trust of potential sources and infuse them with a sense of responsibility for the integrity of the business.
“Chuck Philips changed my life,” recalls Terri McIntyre, who was executive director of the Los Angeles chapter of the Grammy organization when Chuck and I began investigating the organization, the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, and its CEO, C. Michael Greene. “We became trusted friends as I shared ‘off-the-record’ the horrors of my experience at NARAS and the names of many other individuals he should seek out” for further information, recalls McIntyre, who recently filed a lawsuit alleging she was raped by Greene. (Greene denies her allegations.)
“Chuck’s dedication played a meaningful and significant role in my transition from victim-to-survivor,” McIntyre says. “He doggedly fought for the truth.”
For Chuck, every story involved a long-term investment. He was unfailingly sincere and rigorously honest in his treatment of colleagues and record industry workers, from secretaries to executives. Chuck was one of the most gracious colleagues I ever encountered. As long as we worked together he never forgot my birthday, leaving me CDs with mixes of new music that are still in my collection.
Chuck often took on issues that would not be taken up by the broader press for months, even years. In 1991, working with the late Laurie Becklund, he broke the story of sexual misconduct at three leading record companies and a prominent Los Angeles law firm, unearthing legal settlements and government complaints by secretaries and other women in their offices, divulging damning details and identifying the accused perpetrators by name — a quarter-century before reporting on sexual harassment in the entertainment industry launched the #MeToo movement.
Investigative reporters at other media outlets scurried to follow The Times’ reporting. “Chuck Philips was responsible for bringing sexual harassment in the music industry to a national forum,” Richard D. Barnet and Larry L. Burris observed in a 2001 book on music industry controversies.
In 1994, he reported on accusations about Ticketmaster’s strong-arm tactics to preserve its near-monopoly over ticket sales at major concert venues, focusing in part on a complaint by the Seattle band Pearl Jam that Ticketmaster had pressured concert promoters into canceling dates for a national tour on which the band had tried to cap ticket prices.
In 1999, the late Mark Saylor, then the editor of entertainment coverage in The Times’ business section, was inspired to pair me and Chuck together for an investigation of the music industry. Chuck had unique access to the upper echelons of the industry and I could read a financial report.
But Chuck was the guiding spirit of the project, which began with stories exposing financial irregularities at NARAS, which sponsors the Grammys, under the all-powerful Greene — among them its spending less than 10% of the millions of dollars donated to a Grammy charity on its stated purpose of providing assistance to indigent and ailing musicians. We also reported on settlements of numerous complaints of sexual harassment by female workers at NARAS during Greene’s reign.
Greene kept his job until 2002, when the NARAS board finally ousted him after further sexual harassment cases, many of them relentlessly reported by Philips, came to light.
It must be said that Chuck was ill-served by The Times’ former management, which yielded a bitter breakup that may have contributed to his wish, communicated by his family, that no formal obituary appear, including in The Times.
The inflection point came with his indefatigable reporting on the 1996 murder of Tupac Shakur. The product was a front-page article on March 17, 2008, that traced personal animosity between Tupac and the rap artist known as Biggie Smalls, or Notorious B.I.G., to a 1994 ambush at a New York recording studio at which Tupac had been robbed and pistol-whipped. The fallout from that incident, he reported, contributed to both rappers’ killings.
Chuck later recounted that he had tried to track down everyone who witnessed the 1994 assault, visiting witnesses in “prisons across the nation” and in violent neighborhoods in L.A. and New York. His story reported that information “supported Shakur’s claims that associates of music executive Sean “Diddy” Combs orchestrated” the assault; its principal target was the rap music mogul James “Jimmy Henchman” Rosemond, an associate of Combs. It was accompanied by purported FBI reports, known as 302s, of interviews with informants; the documents appeared to support Shakur’s claims, though the 2008 article didn’t hinge on those documents.
Chuck had been tipped to the documents by an associate of Henchman’s, who told him that he had filed the 302s in a lawsuit he had brought in federal court in Florida and that they made a reference to the 1994 assault.
The documents were “privileged” — meaning that because they had been filed in an earlier court case, they could be reported on without legal liability. As it happened, however, they were also fabricated. When the article ran, Chuck did not know he had been steered toward faked documents, though he realized it soon afterward. In the aftermath, he suffered the consequences.
The Times retracted the story and removed it from its website.
Chuck disagreed with the retraction, arguing that the documents had been at best peripheral to his reporting and that the article held water without them — indeed, that he had striven to minimize references to the documents in his original draft but had been overruled by editors.
In any event, his targets exploited the retraction in a concentrated campaign to undermine his credibility. Henchman, as it happens, was sentenced in 2018 to life in prison plus 30 years for ordering the murder of a rap music rival.
A few months after the retraction, Chuck was swept out of The Times in a layoff wave, ending a career as one of the most distinguished staff members in the newspaper’s history.
Chuck spent years defending himself, including via a lengthy first-person accounting in New York’s Village Voice in 2012. The retraction permanently overshadowed his career; he never again was able to secure a full-time reporting job. Now his voice is permanently stilled, but his impact on the way we try to cover entertainment lives on.
Nearly two years after actor Alec Baldwin was cleared of criminal charges in the “Rust” movie shooting death, a long simmering civil negligence case is inching toward a trial this fall.
On Friday, a Los Angeles Superior Court judge denied a summary judgment motion requested by the film producers Rust Movie Productions LLC, as well as actor-producer Baldwin and his firm El Dorado Pictures to dismiss the case.
During a hearing, Superior Court Judge Maurice Leiter set an Oct. 12 trial date.
The negligence suit was brought more than four years ago by Serge Svetnoy, who served as the chief lighting technician on the problem-plagued western film. Svetnoy was close friends with cinematographer Halyna Hutchins and held her in his arms as she lay dying on the floor of the New Mexico movie set. Baldwin’s firearm had discharged, launching a .45 caliber bullet, which struck and killed her.
The Bonanza Creek Ranch in Santa Fe, N.M. in 2021.
(Jae C. Hong / Associated Press)
Svetnoy was the first crew member of the ill-fated western to bring a lawsuit against the producers, alleging they were negligent in Hutchins’ October 2021 death. He maintains he has suffered trauma in the years since. In addition to negligence, his lawsuit also accuses the producers of intentional infliction of emotional distress.
Prosecutors dropped criminal charges against Baldwin, who has long maintained he was not responsible for Hutchins’ death.
“We are pleased with the Court’s decision denying the motions for summary judgment filed by Rust Movie Productions and Mr. Baldwin,” lawyers Gary Dordick and John Upton, who represent Svetnoy, said in a statement following the hearing. “He looks forward to finally having his day in court on this long-pending matter.”
The judge denied the defendants’ request to dismiss the negligence, emotional distress and punitive damages claims. One count directed at Baldwin, alleging assault, was dropped.
Svetnoy has said the bullet whizzed past his head and “narrowly missed him,” according to the gaffer’s suit.
Attorneys representing Baldwin and the producers were not immediately available for comment.
Svetnoy and Hutchins had been friends for more than five years and worked together on nine film productions. Both were immigrants from Ukraine, and they spent holidays together with their families.
On Oct. 21, 2021, he was helping prepare for an afternoon of filming in a wooden church on Bonanza Creek Ranch. Hutchins was conversing with Baldwin to set up a camera angle that Hutchins wanted to depict: a close-up image of the barrel of Baldwin’s revolver.
The day had been chaotic because Hutchins’ union camera crew had walked off the set to protest the lack of nearby housing and previous alleged safety violations with the firearms on the set.
Instead of postponing filming to resolve the labor dispute, producers pushed forward, crew members alleged.
New Mexico prosecutors prevailed in a criminal case against the armorer, Hannah Gutierrez, in March 2024. She served more than a year in a state women’s prison for her involuntary manslaughter conviction before being released last year.
Baldwin faced a similar charge, but the case against him unraveled spectacularly.
On the second day of his July 2024 trial, his criminal defense attorneys — Luke Nikas and Alex Spiro — presented evidence that prosecutors and sheriff’s deputies withheld evidence that may have helped his defense . The judge was furious, setting Baldwin free.
Variety first reported on Friday’s court action.
The highest gas prices in the country are making it tougher for some gig drivers to make a living.
Gas prices have shot up amid the war in the Middle East. On average, California gas prices are the most expensive in the United States, according to data from the American Automobile Assn. The average price of regular gas in California is almost $6. The national average is a little above $4.
While Uber and Lyft drivers have concocted clever ways to cut gas consumption, they say that without some relief they will be forced to leave the ride-hailing business.
John Mejia was already struggling to make money as a part-time Lyft driver when soaring gas prices made his side hustle even harder.
“Unfortunately, it’s the economics of paying less to drivers and gas prices,” he said. “It actually is pulling people out of the business.”
Guests at The Westin St. Francis hotel get into an Uber.
(Jess Lynn Goss / For The Times)
Gig work offers drivers the freedom to work for themselves and more flexibility, but being independent contractors also means they must shoulder unexpected costs.
Ride-sharing companies say they’re trying to help, but drivers say the gas relief comes with caveats. For now, drivers say they’re being pickier about what rides they accept, cutting hours and are looking at other ways to make money.
Mejia, who started driving for Lyft more than a decade ago, said in his early days, he would sometimes make $400 in three hours. Now it takes 12 hours to rake in $200.
The San Francisco Bay Area consultant is an active member of the California Gig Workers Union, so he knows he isn’t alone. California has more than 800,000 gig rideshare drivers, according to the group, which is affiliated with the Service Employees International Union.
On social media sites such as Reddit and Facebook, gig workers have posted about how the higher gas prices are eating into their earnings. Among the tricks they are suggesting: reducing the number of times the ignition is turned on or off, avoiding traffic, working in specific neighborhoods and at times with high demand and switching to electric vehicles.
Gig drivers usually have only seconds to decide whether to accept a ride on the app, but they have become more strategic about which rides and deliveries they accept.
That means they are more likely to sit back in their cars and wait for higher fares for quick pick-up and drop-off.
“I highly recommend the ‘decline and recline’ strategy, rejecting unprofitable rides until a better one appears,” wrote Sergio Avedian, a driver, in the popular blog the Rideshare Guy.
Pedestrians cross the street in front of a Lyft and Uber driver on Wednesday. High gas prices have made it hard for gig drivers to make a living, cutting into their profits.
(Jess Lynn Goss / For The Times)
Uber, Lyft and other companies have unveiled several ways to help drivers save on gas.
Uber said drivers can get up to 15% cash back through May 26 with the Uber Pro card, a business debit Mastercard for drivers and couriers. Based on a worker’s tier, they can get up to $1 off per gallon of gas through Upside — an app that offers cash rewards — and up to 21 cents off per gallon of gas with Shell Fuel Rewards. The company also offers incentives for drivers who want to switch to electric vehicles.
“We know the price of gas is top of mind for many rideshare and delivery drivers across the country right now,” Uber said in a blog post about its gas savings efforts.
Lyft also said it’s expanding gas relief through May 26 because the company knows that the extra cost “hits hardest for drivers who depend on driving for their income.”
The company is offering more cash back, depending on the driver’s tier, for drivers who use a Lyft Direct business debit card to pay for gas at eligible gas stations. They can get an additional 14 cents per gallon off through Upside.
Drivers say the fine print on the offers dictates which card they use and where they fill up gas, making it difficult for them to save money.
“If I do the math, it’s ridiculous,” Mejia said. “They’re offering us nothing.”
Uber declined to comment, but pointed to its blog post about the gas relief efforts. Lyft also referenced the blog post and said “the gas savings were structured through rewards to maximize stackable opportunities.”
Guests at The Westin St. Francis hotel get into an Uber.
(Jess Lynn Goss / For The Times)
Gig workers have struggled with rising gas prices in the past.
In 2022, Lyft and Uber temporarily added a surcharge to their fares amid record-high gas prices following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. This year, Uber is adding a fuel charge to its fares in Australia for roughly two months to offset the high cost of gas for drivers. Lyft said it hasn’t added a fuel charge in the U.S. or elsewhere.
Margarita Penalosa, who drives full time for Uber and Lyft in Los Angeles, started as a rideshare driver in 2017. Back then, gas was cheaper. She would easily hit her goal of making $300 in eight hours. Now she’s making just $250 after working as much as 14 hours.
Gas prices, she said, used to be less than $3 per gallon. Now some gas stations are charging more than $8 per gallon.
“Take out the gas. Take out the mileage from my car and maintenance. How much [do] I really make? Probably I get $11 for an hour,” she said.
Jonathan Tipton Meyers wants to spend fewer hours as a rideshare driver.
He already juggles multiple gigs even while driving for Uber and Lyft in Los Angeles. He’s a mobile notary and loan signing agent, a writer and performer.
Driving is “a very challenging, full-time job,” he said. “It’s very taxing and, of course, wages were just continually decreasing.”
John Mejia, a longtime Lyft and Uber driver, poses for a portrait before attending a meeting about unionizing gig drivers.
(Jess Lynn Goss / For The Times)
Even if oil continues to flow through the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran reopened Friday, it could take a while for gas prices to come down to earth, said Mark Zandi, the chief economist at Moody’s Analytics.
“There’s an old adage that prices rise like a rocket and fall like a feather,” he said. “I think that’ll apply.”
In the meantime, it will be survival of the fittest drivers. If enough of them decide to leave the apps, the ride-hailing companies could be forced to raise fares further to attract some back.
“Those who approach rideshare driving strategically, tracking expenses, choosing trips carefully, and optimizing efficiency are far more likely to weather periods of high gas prices,” wrote Avedian in the Rideshare Guy blog. “For everyone else, a spike at the pump can quickly turn rideshare driving from a side hustle into a money-losing venture.”
The proprietor of Los Angeles’ legendary Clifton’s has given up on reopening the shuttered venue.
It’s just too difficult to do business in downtown’s historic core, he says.
Andrew Meieran bought Clifton’s on Broadway in 2010 and poured more than $14 million into repairs, renovations and upgrades, adding additional bar and restaurant spaces in the four-story building. In 2018, he found that demand for cafeteria food was too low to be profitable, and he pivoted to a nightclub and lounge concept called Clifton’s Republic, featuring multiple dining and drinking venues. Meieran has tried elaborate themed environments, such as a tiki bar and forest playgrounds, and renting out the location for big events to spark more interest.
It was never easy, but during and since the pandemic, the neighborhood has grown increasingly unsafe as downtown has emptied of office workers and visitors.
Storefronts are gated up due to vandalism in the historic district in downtown Los Angeles on Tuesday.
(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)
The alley behind Clifton’s Cafeteria in the downtown historic district Tuesday.
(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)
Vandalism has been rampant, with graffiti appearing on the historic structure almost daily. Vandals would use acid or diamond glass cutters to deface the windows, often cracking the glass. It would cost Meieran more than $30,000 each time to replace the windows. Insurance companies either stopped offering policies that covered vandalism or raised premiums by as much as 600%, he said.
There has been continuous crime in the area, he said, including multiple assaults on people in front of his building. He last shut the venue last year, hoping things would improve and he could come back with a business that could work. Now he has given up. Someone else may take over the space or even the name of the historic spot, but he is done trying.
“We’ve lost our way,” Meieran said. “I want to get up on the tops of the skyscrapers and yell that people need to pay attention to this.”
The disenchantment of a business leader who used to be one of downtown L.A.’s biggest backers shines a spotlight on the stubborn safety concerns, rising costs and thinner foot traffic that have made it increasingly difficult for even iconic businesses to survive.
The once-popular institution dates back to 1935, when it was a Depression-era cafeteria and kitschy oasis that sold as many as 15,000 meals a day when Broadway was the city’s entertainment hub.
It served traditional cafeteria food such as pot roast, mashed potatoes and Jell-O in a woodsy grotto among fake redwood trees and a stone-wrapped waterfall reminiscent of Brookdale Lodge in Northern California.
It’s not the only once-prominent destination that has failed to find a way to flourish in today’s market. Cole’s, one of L.A.’s most famous restaurants and often credited with inventing the French dip sandwich, closed last month after a 118-year run.
“The bigger problem for us and the rest of the industry is the high cost of doing business,” said Cedd Moses, who used to operate Cole’s and has backed many other bars and restaurants in historic buildings downtown for decades. “That’s what is killing independent restaurants in this city.”
Outside of Clifton’s Cafeteria.
(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)
Clifton’s Republic owner Andrew Meieran stands next to a boat on the top floor of the historic restaurant in 2024.
(Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)
Clifton’s opened and closed repeatedly during the pandemic and, more recently, after a burst pipe caused extensive damage. Meieran opened it for special events such as last Halloween, but it has otherwise been closed.
Police are woefully understaffed and hampered by public policy, said Blair Besten, president of downtown’s Historic Core Business Improvement District, a nonprofit that arranges graffiti removal, trash pickup and safety patrols in the area.
Businesses and residents in the area would like to see a bigger police presence, but there have been protests against that by people who are not from downtown, she said.
“People are starting to see the fruits of the defunding movement,” she said. “It has not led us to a better place as a city.”
The Los Angeles Police Department is making progress downtown, Captain Kelly Muniz said, with violent crime down more than 10% from last year.
“While we’re working very hard to solve crime, to prevent crime, there are still elements such as trash, open-air drug use, homelessness and graffiti,” she said. “We’re swinging in the right direction.”
Retailers have been opting out of downtown L.A., said real estate broker Derrick Moore of CBRE, who helps arrange commercial property leases. Brands have headed to more vibrant nearby neighborhoods such as Echo Park and Silver Lake.
“A lot of operators are just electing to skip over downtown,” he said. “They’re leasing spaces elsewhere, where they feel they have a greater chance at higher sales.”
A man walks past a pile of trash left on the street in the historic district.
(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)
While some businesses are struggling, many downtown residents say their perceptions of safety are improving and that the area is regaining some vibrancy.
“A lot of people live here. I think people forget that,” Besten said. “We’re all surviving. It’s just hard for all the businesses to survive.”
A green shoot for the Historic Core is Art Night on the first Thursday of every month, when 50 or 60 locations, including permanent art galleries and pop-up galleries in unused storefronts, display art to map-toting visitors who come for the occasion.
They often end up in Spring Street bars, which more typically thrive on weekend nights but are still a draw to downtown.
“I think nightlife will thrive downtown, since bars attract people that don’t mind a little grittier atmosphere,” said Moses. “Our sales are hitting new records at our bars downtown, fortunately, but our costs have risen dramatically.”
A closed sign for Clifton’s Cafeteria.
(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)
Clifton’s former backer, Meieran, says he doesn’t think things are going to bounce back enough to warrant more massive investment. He has sold the building, and the owner is looking for a new tenant to occupy Clifton’s space. He still controls the Clifton’s name.
While there is still a chance he could let someone else use the name Clifton’s, Meieran is done for now — too many bad memories.
“There was a guy who was terrorizing the front of Clifton’s because he decided he wanted to live in the vestibule in front, and he didn’t want us to operate there,” Meieran said. “He would threaten to kill anybody who came through.”
He doesn’t believe official statistics that show crime and homelessness are way down in the area, and he doesn’t want to restart a business when criminals can so easily erase his hard work.
“What business that’s already on thin margins can survive that?” he said.
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