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Dr. Patrick Soon-Shione, owner of the Los Angeles Times, has removed an op-ed column criticizing President-elect Donald Trump’s recent cabinet picks and has issued a warning to the paper’s editorial board that it may publish an editorial with an opposing view. I told them that I could publish the article only in . According to the New York Times.
The spiked column was scheduled to appear in the outlet’s Sunday paper and website on Nov. 24. Soon-Shiong intervened hours before the op-ed was scheduled to go to print, urging editors to withdraw it as the deadline approached. .
According to the New York Times, the column’s headline was, “Donald Trump’s cabinet picks are not normal. That’s how the Senate confirmation process should be.” After announcing the nominees, many of whom were also concerned by committee members, he decided to have one of his reporters write an article urging the Senate to get serious about the job of confirming the nominees.
“The editorial said the Senate should follow the traditional process and that several Trump picks, including former Fox News host Pete Hegseth and former presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. “The New York Times criticized him as unsuitable for the proposed role.”
After Soon-Shiong intervened and the editorial was withdrawn, the paper’s editors scrambled to find another column to fill the suddenly vacant slot. In the end, we decided to go with an article already written by outgoing editorial board member Karin Klein that took a more sympathetic stance against President Trump. The column’s headline was “Trump has a chance to be a true education president.”
CNN’s reliable sources said on Friday morning that Soon-Shiong had fast-tracked the editorial, as well as some recent opinion column headlines, concerned that the billionaire owner would “reject anything too harsh.” It was reported that the editors had “softened” or “made it more bland” by editors who had done so. “For the most part, we’re just writing about state and local issues right now,” a source told CNN.
This comes as Soon-Shiong seeks to make the Times more “balanced” and less of a liberal “echo chamber,” with pressure on the paper to take a more pro-Trump approach. This is the latest example of this.
The billionaire medical technology entrepreneur who bought the LA Times for $500 million in 2018 has been accused of interfering with the paper’s reporting while trying to reshape its editorial board to include more conservative voices. It has drawn the ire of staff for several months. Before the presidential election, he forced editors to withdraw their support for Democratic candidate Kamala Harris, leading to multiple resignations and the loss of thousands of subscribers.
He also became a big fan of CNN’s resident Trump defender Scott Jennings, and offered him a position on the paper’s editorial board, which the conservative commentator accepted. Soon-Shiong then informed staff that a full-time position on the board of directors was currently under consideration. Mr. Jennings is only a contributor to the paper and not a staff member, a person familiar with the matter said.
Earlier this month, during a podcast appearance with Jennings, Soon-Shiong vowed to add an AI-powered “bias meter” to the paper’s opinion and news reporting as part of an effort to present “both sides” of a story to readers. did. The Times’ union quickly denounced his proposal, saying Soon-Shiong had “publicly suggested that staff are biased, without providing evidence or examples.”
Soon-Shiong is not the only billionaire owner of a major American newspaper to face backlash from staff and readers for softening his stance on President Trump. Jeff Bezos also blocked the Washington Post from endorsing Harris days before the election, resulting in the paper losing about 250,000 subscribers. Meanwhile, the Amazon founder, who hailed President Trump’s election victory as an “extraordinary political comeback and victory,” is reportedly donating $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund.
At a time when some executives at traditional media brands are expressing sympathy for President Trump, the president-elect, who famously branded mainstream news outlets as “fake news,” has clearly noticed.
“The media has been a little bit subdued. I think they’re much more favorable towards us now,” Trump said Thursday after ringing the opening bell of the New York Stock Exchange. “If they don’t, we’ll be fighting them again and we don’t want to do that.”
