A Washington Times story on a city corruption scandal in Southern California has drawn the ire of LA Weekly, a local alternative newspaper that contends the Times piece unfairly stereotypes the area as having “graffiti, gangs and illegal immigrants.”

At issue is an Aug. 9 Times story about the scandal in Bell, Calif., in which several city officials were removed from their posts afte reports that they were earning up to $800,000 per year. The scandal has also drawn an investigation by state Attorney General Jerry Brown.

But LA Weekly's Dennis Romero contends the piece also gives an unfair negative portrayal of the area:

Writer Jeffrey Anderson, a former LA Weekly staff writer who has covered southeast L.A. County cities in the past, paints a bleak picture of the region as one that shivers in the grip of gangs, the Mexican Mafia, corruption and a whole lot of brown people.

He later states:

It's true that sometimes dirty politicians in the region feed off an immigrant, working class population and its lack of media coverage. Anderson should know. He covered the place better than most. But this quilt of selected truths reads like modern-day pulp fiction, except the bad guys are brown instead of Italian or Irish.