Los Angeles Times owner Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong killed an opinion column that was critical of President-elect Donald Trump’s recent Cabinet picks, telling his paper’s editorial board that it could only publish the piece if it also ran an editorial with an opposing view, according to The New York Times.
The spiked column was set to be published in the outlet’s Sunday newspaper and website on November 24. Soon-Shiong intervened just hours before the op-ed was scheduled to be sent to the printer, prompting the editors to pull the piece as the deadline approached.
According to the NY Times, the column was headlined: “Donald Trump’s cabinet choices are not normal. The Senate’s confirmation process should be.” The editorial board decided that after the incoming president had announced a slew of controversial picks, many of which the board members were concerned about, it would have one of its writers pen a piece calling on the Senate to take its job of confirming nominees seriously.
“In addition to saying that the Senate should follow its traditional process, the editorial criticized several of Mr. Trump’s picks as being unfit for their proposed roles, including former Fox News host Pete Hegseth and former presidential contender Robert F. Kennedy Jr.,” The New York Times noted.
After Soon-Shiong’s intervention led to the editorial being pulled, the paper’s editors scrambled to find another column to fill the suddenly open slot. Ultimately, they decided on an already written piece by outgoing editorial board member Karin Klein that took a more sympathetic stance on Trump. That column was headlined, “Trump has a chance to be a true education president.”
CNN’s Reliable Sources reported on Friday morning that besides Soon-Shiong spiking the editorial, several recent opinion section headlines were also “softened” or “made more bland” by editors concerned that “anything too harsh would get rejected” by the billionaire owner. “For the most part, we’re now just writing about state and local issues,” a source told CNN.
This is the latest instance of Soon-Shiong pushing his paper to take a more Trump-friendly approach as he attempts to make the Times, in his words, more “balanced” and less of a liberal “echo chamber.”
The billionaire medical tech entrepreneur, who purchased the LA Times for $500 million in 2018, has drawn staff outrage for months over his meddling with the paper’s coverage while seeking to recast the editorial board to include more conservative voices. Prior to the presidential election, he forced the editors to withdraw their endorsement of Democratic nominee Kamala Harris, sparking multiple resignations and the loss of thousands of subscribers.
He also became a huge fan of CNN’s resident Trump defender Scott Jennings, offering him a position on his paper’s editorial board, which the conservative pundit accepted. Soon-Shiong has since told the staff that full-time positions on the board are now under review. According to a source with knowledge of the situation, Jennings will only be a contributor to the paper and not a staff member.
Earlier this month, during a podcast appearance with Jennings, Soon-Shiong declared he would add an AI-powered “bias meter” to the newspaper’s opinion and news coverage as part of his effort to present “both sides” of the story to readers. The Times guild quickly met his proposal with a rebuke, which said Soon-Shiong had “publicly suggested his staff harbors bias, without offering evidence or examples.”
Soon-Shiong isn’t the only billionaire owner of a large American newspaper that has taken heat from staff and readers for taking a softened stance towards Trump. Jeff Bezos also blockedThe Washington Post from endorsing Harris just days before the election, resulting in the paper losing roughly a quarter-million subscribers. Meanwhile, the Amazon founder — who praised Trump’s election win “as an extraordinary political comeback and victory” — is reportedly donating $1 million to Trump’s inauguration fund.
Now that some executives running legacy media brands are showing sympathy towards Trump, the president-elect — who famously labeled the mainstream press “fake news” — has obviously noticed.
“The media’s tamed down a little bit. They’re liking us much better now, I think,” Trump said on Thursday after ringing the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange. “If they don’t, we’ll have to just take them on again, and we don’t want to do that.”
