good factual reporting of out of control corruption

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Living on the east coast my whole life, I never paid much attention to schools and media issues on the west coast. In Bad City the author got my attention on the first page and it never let up.

A tip about a doctor and drugs and an overdose got the author to look into whether or not there was anything to the tip and he found yes, there was good reason to do so. It ended being a far larger story than he had thought and the process of getting it to print was far harder than it should have been. Partly that was due to the levels of corruption at USC and with his superiors at the Times where he worked.

There was little response from police or USC and it made getting every bit of info verified so much harder. Once it was together, the higher ups killed the story, probably due to not wanting to rock the boat with the very influential USC. For the school though, it was only one of many scandals that came to light.

A sicko campus doctor caused a huge situation just prior to the MeToo era along with the Varsity Blues bribery scandal. Those scandals might not have seen as much media coverage if this author and his coworkers hadn't worked so hard to bring this situation to the light.

I liked seeing all the facts laid out and researched. Good reporting. Thank you Bookish for an advance reader copy in exchange for an honest opinion.