By Rahjan Brown
CALIFORNIA- Two months after sending a demand for retraction, The Los Angeles Times agrees to honor Motecuzoma Sanchez’s request.
Sanchez, who is the founder and creator of 209 Times, took issue with an editorial the LA Times published in August of this year in which they portrayed him and the organization as “right wing” as a way to provide political cover for disgraced former mayor of Stockton, Michael Tubbs.
Upon receiving no response from the LA Times, Sanchez and a team of his associates went to their headquarters demanding to speak to their owner and a reporter who has been requesting information on Sanchez from various sources. The response also came two days after Sanchez and the 209 Times crew launched 213 Times to focus on the Los Angeles area.
While writing an Op Ed accusing the 209 Times of “disinformation”, it appears it is actually the LA Times who is now admitting to publishing “errors” aka Fake News.
The following is the response Sanchez received:
Below is the letter Sanchez sent to their editors:
Dear LA Times Editorial Board,
I see that former mayor Michael Tubbs has pulled you into his con. And you’re supposed to be the professional standard? You aren’t even wise enough to look beyond his crafted false narratives and verify what he did and didn’t do for my city. That he ran away from after losing. To Los Angeles. What a coincidence that you’re now focusing on us.
I find it entertaining that almost a year after losing in an embarrassing double digit landslide to an unknown newcomer that he’s still crying about Motecuzoma Sanchez and he 209 Times. And now so are you. For a race in a city you don’t even care about. Don’t act like you do. What you are trying to do is provide that loser political cover for his epic failure. Instead of focusing on his own failures, there were many (we just exploited them), you are trying fool everyone into believing his lies that we somehow fooled everyone with “misinformation”. Nevermind his actual record in office and in the community beyond his fake projects that you bought into and also promoted, that turned the community against him by his own actions and inactions and routine disrespect of community members and stakeholders. Didn’t you guys learn from WMD and Iraq? And we know you’re doing it because our intel in LA reports he’s planning on running for an office there, most likely LAUSD.
But that’s neither here nor there. I’m writing to you professionals to address your blatant lies against me in an editorial published by your professional board in August 9th of this year. In the feature photo of the sad clown you write that my organization is “right wing”. I take extreme offense to that false claim and defamatory claim as it is akin to suggesting I am a white supremacist. And which right winger would ever say that?
I am in fact a Progressive registered Democrat. Your false claim tries to defame me in my own circle. I am a delegate to the California Democratic Party and have held that position after several elections by my democratic peers. Most recently I was appointed by the Democratic Assemblymember who I also endorsed over Tubbs’ endorsed candidate, Kathy Miller, who didn’t change her party registration until briefly before running for that seat. She also lost. In 2016 I was an elected delegate for Bernie Sanders at the Democratic National Convention when Clinton stole the nomination leading the way for the election of Trump. Which we correctly predicted would happen.
I have been an activist in my city and throughout the state for over 25 years. Your characterization of me as “right wing” is without cause, baseless, defamatory, and libelous as I am the only person named in your “op Ed” hit piece.
You also falsely claim my “agenda” was to run for mayor as if that affected the FACTS we reported. The REALITY is I first ran for mayor in 2008 when your sellout Tubbs was still a mocoso in grade school crying racism to escape discipline. I founded the revolutionary 209 Times in 2016 before Mike, the buddy of racist Mike Bloomberg, had even announced he was running for mayor. He was originally running for San Joaquin County Supervisor until the favorite for the mayor election, Steve Bestolarides, dropped out of the race.
In 2018 I ran for County Supervisor against Tubbs’ same assembly endorsed candidate previously mentioned. I routinely and continue to, brag about my role and creation of 209 Times. Y que? (Ask the descendants of all the Mexicans in LA that your rag fostered racial hatred towards leading up to the Zoot Suit riots what that means).
So tell the public again what my “agenda” is since you never bothered to reach out to me for comment in your “op ed”, but included quotes by Tubbs claiming we “lied” about him, violating the same “journalist standard” you highlight in your hit piece that we “don’t follow” based a supposed third party who you strategically quoted to push your pre-crafted narrative while pontificating about “bias”.
From your own op-ed: “Nowhere in the article was there a response from Valadao, or even a mention of any attempt to reach him. That’s a violation of a basic tenet of journalism: The subject of a critical news article deserves a chance to respond”. Yet the LA Times editors never once reached out to me for the very same article.
You’re a joke. As is your entire profit motivated industry that we only mimic and mock.
You also falsely claim: “the site reported that Tubbs planned to turn the San Joaquin County Fairgrounds into a giant homeless encampment”.
Yet we clearly reported: “On 10/14/2020 a meeting was held with The City of Stockton, The California Department of Food & Agriculture (CDFA)(which oversees the Fairgrounds Property) and the San Joaquin Continuum of Care (aka homeless task force that Mayor Tubbs and County Supervisor Kathy Miller) to make official the planned closure of the San Joaquin County Fair.
After ignoring the crisis for the majority of his time as mayor, as part of a major ‘Pilot Project’ being pushed by Mayor Michael Tubbs and Governor Gavin Newson (Former Mayor of San Francisco) the gates of the Fairgrounds will officially close on 10/23/2020 and the 255 acre Fairgrounds property that has been around for 160 years, will be converted to the state’s first homeless reservation”.
This proposed solution was in fact in the minutes of meetings of a “task force” that FORMER mayor Tubbs was included in and a member of pertaining to the city he was elected to represent. We even included multiple documents and reached out to him for comment (something he routinely rejected), which is more than can be said for you and you organization in regards to your “op ed).
And unlike michael Tubbs in the several years we covered his multiple failures in public office, I am
demanding a retraction from the Los Angeles Times for statements that are blatantly false, defamatory towards my character, and flat out libelous.
Sinceramente,
Motecuzoma Sanchez
