Los Angeles Times owner Patrick Soon-Shiong’s interference in the paper’s editorial independence has ramped up since the election, and in recent weeks he killed an editorial that would have mildly criticized Donald Trump’s cabinet picks, the New York Times reported Thursday.
According to the Times, the editorial didn’t take a strident leftist perspective. Instead it argued that the U.S. Senate shouldn’t abandon its constitutional obligation to provide “advice and consent” for presidential appointments.
Nevertheless Soon-Shiong insisted that the opinion piece, titled “Donald Trump’s cabinet choices are not normal. The Senate’s confirmation process should be.” be published alongside one making the opposite point, the Times reported.
Because of a tight deadline, and because, according to the times, LA Times editors were “baffled” by this demand, the article was spiked.
Prior to the election, Soon-Shiong canceled the paper’s planned endorsement of Kamala Harris as well as an article titled “The Case Against Trump.” He provided multiple, often contradictory justifications for these decisions.
Soon-Shiong has also enacted or announced changes that appear to be designed to make the Los Angeles Times more right wing. Among them, he has named right wing commentator Scott Jennings to the paper’s editorial board, and has also proposed a so-called “bias meter” powered by AI software be attached to LA Times news articles that would provide rewrites of the articles from the opposing point of view — effectively accusing the journalists on his payroll of bias.