On February 6, California State Sen. Sasha Renée Pérez introduced a bill to put new oversight on immigration detention centers. L.A. TACO reporter Memo Torres wrote it up.
Two weeks later, she held a press conference to promote it. Torres covered that, too. A month after that, he gave the bill another round of attention.
What his readers didn't know was that the senator and the reporter were seeing each other.
By May, the two were attending the Latino Spirit Awards in Sacramento. Pérez walked up on stage and handed L.A. TACO a journalism award. Later that month, the two reportedly strolled onto the state Assembly floor arm in arm.
Most newsrooms would have a problem with a reporter dating the politician he covers. Most wouldn't have to worry about her giving the newsroom a trophy.
According to sources close to the outlet, it went further. They say Pérez edited and wrote parts of stories that ran under Torres's name. If they're right, L.A. TACO readers who thought they were getting independent coverage of a Democrat's anti-ICE push were reading copy she'd helped write herself. That's the literal definition of propaganda.
Both deny it. "I did not write any articles or control the editorial decisions of L.A. Taco," Pérez said, and she accused her critics of trying to "undermine my work and attack Memo's integrity." She does admit to a "prior personal relationship" with Torres. Management, she said, told the two of them about six months ago to cut back on talking, and they did.
Nobody tells a reporter to stop talking to a senator unless something has already gone wrong.
One of Torres's stories about her bill now carries an editor's note, saying it was changed "to meet editorial standards."
On October 22, after nearly five months of back-and-forth, L.A. TACO fired him. The outlet cited "repeated violations of our policies and our basic journalistic standards."
People familiar with the investigation say the romance was just one item on a long list. Torres went around his editors and made factual errors. This month, he made a significant mistake and, according to those sources, refused to own it. Management even signed him up for an ethics course, which he allegedly never finished.
"I have no idea what they are talking about," Torres said. "I have never refused accountability about anything."
Then he told his followers he'd been "blindsided." His fans took that to mean L.A. TACO had pushed him out to go easy on ICE, and they went after his former coworkers. The outlet called the rumor "a lie. And a dangerous one," and asked Torres to call off the harassment. He hasn't said a word about it.
He did find time to launch a Substack, which shot into the top three news publications on the platform within days.
Pérez is still in office. At 34, she's the youngest member of the California Senate, a former mayor of Alhambra, and chair of the Senate Education Committee. She's also one of Sacramento's loudest critics of immigration enforcement.
L.A. TACO hasn't said how many of Torres's stories she might have had a hand in. So far, it has added an editor's note to one.
