Patrick Soon-Shiong of the Los Angeles Times announced plans to incorporate an artificial intelligence-powered “bias meter” into the paper’s reporting.
Soon-Shiong, the biotech billionaire who bought the Los Angeles Times in 2018, made the comments on a podcast hosted by conservative commentator Scott Jennings, who will soon join the Los Angeles Times editorial board.
The proposed move is the latest controversy to rock the paper, which has suffered a wave of resignations and firings under Soon-Shiong’s leadership. Most recently, Soon-Shiong blocked the paper from endorsing Democrat Kamala Harris in last month’s presidential election, angering many staffers.
Soon-Shiong said the “bias meter” will be built into articles so that “when someone reads it, they can understand that there is some degree of bias in the source of the article.”
“And what we need to do is make sure that we don’t have what’s called confirmation bias, so that automatically that story tells the reader that when they press the button, based on that story, they get the exact same story.” You can get both sides and comment on it,” he added.
Mr. Soon-Shiong told Mr. Jennings that he was “quietly building” the AI tool “behind the scenes” and expressed his hope to announce it by January next year.
His comments immediately prompted a reaction from the union that represents much of the LA Times’ newsroom staff.
“The newspaper’s owners have publicly suggested, without providing evidence or examples, that their staff is biased,” the statement said.
It added: “Our members and all Times staff are held to a strict set of ethical guidelines that call for fairness, accuracy, transparency, vigilance against bias, and a passionate quest to understand all sides of an issue. These long-standing principles will continue to guide our work. ”
The recent announcement of Biasmeter comes as Soon-Shiong has expressed in recent weeks a desire to include more conservative opinions in the paper’s opinion column.
“It’s clear that we need to revitalize our institutions and ensure that dissent and all voices, left, right and centre, can be heard,” he said in November. “This will not be easy, but I am committed to making this happen and healing our divided nation through a platform that enables civil discourse.”
Last week, he announced that Jennings would join the LA Times editorial board.
Jennings said in a statement that he would “applaud Dr. Soon-Shiong’s move to bring balance to the editorial board on behalf of Americans who believe they are too often ignored or ridiculed in legacy media.” He said that.
Soon-Shiong has come under fire in recent months for blocking the Los Angeles Times Editorial Board from endorsing Kamala Harris for president.
The decision sparked a wave of subscriber cancellations, angered and high profile staff at the publisher, including recent Pulitzer Prize winner Robert Greene and Harry Littman, senior legal columnist for the Times’ opinion pages. There was a series of high-profile resignations.
Litman said in a statement Thursday that his resignation was “a protest and visceral reaction to the actions of the paper’s owner, Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong.”
“Mr. Soon-Shiong has made several moves, over strong opposition from his staff, to push the paper into a stance more sympathetic to Donald Trump,” he said. “They are disturbing and dangerous given the existential risks to our democracy that I believe a second term for President Trump poses and the evidence that Mr. Soon-Shiong is rallying support for the next president.”
