the buzz log

Last week, the Los Angeles Times broke a provocative report from a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter. The story linked rapper-actor-style-mogul Sean "Diddy" Combs to the 1994 shooting of Hip-Hop legend Tupac Shakur.

The response was immediate. Diddy issued a furious denial, and the paper's website absorbed nearly 1 million hits—"more viewers than any other story on latimes.com this year."

The only problem? The L.A. paper was duped. According to Smoking Gun, the report relied on FBI papers fabricated by a delusional, dumpy, and incarcerated con-man named James Sabatino. Whoops. The Southern California publication has since apologized.

In Buzz, readers have followed the swindle's repercussions with interest. Reports from Rolling Stone and Reuters, via Yahoo! News, have posted triple-digit scores. The Y! News item is currently the third most popular entertainment story for the past 24 hours. More recently, a New York Magazine piece vaulted upwards. It connects the faulty journalism at The Times to the bad reporting portrayed on HBO's "The Wire." 

Hoaxes may come and go, but nothing dims the fascination searchers nurse for Tupac. In the last week alone, huge numbers of people turned to the Web for more on the slain musician's lyrics, music, quotes, and poems. One of the most popular look-ups for the iconic rapper? "Proof tupac is still alive." Maybe The L.A. Times should get on that.