The owner of the Los Angeles Times has ordered his outlet’s editorial team to stop writing about President-elect Donald Trump, according to a new report.
Ex-CNN journalist Oliver Darcy reported a memo He received information from Times employees who complained that owner Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong intervened directly when it came to the publication of articles critical of Trump in the newspaper and other editorial decisions.
According to the memo sent to Editor-in-Chief Terry Tang and signed by several opinion staff members, Dr. Soon-Shiong told the editorial team to “take a break from writing about the president-elect.”
Employees signed the memo because they followed Dr. Soon-Shiong viewed “alarming actions” and emphasized her obligation to report “anything that could damage the Times’ reputation,” the report said.
LA Times staff have reportedly expressed concerns about their branch’s owner, Dr. Soon-Shiong, and expressed his “alarming measures” to try to make the newspaper’s editorial board less liberal. (Marcus Yam / Contributor)
“We understand that Dr. Soon Shiong plays a role in shaping the tone and direction of the newsroom and opinion section, but we are still bound by the core values and ethics of journalism, including the duty to be transparent and act in service of the public,” it said in the memo.
It added: “We believe we have a duty to report under the Ethics Policy, which states that ‘the primary goal should always be to protect the integrity of the Times.’
The memo also claimed that Dr. Soon-Shiong “implemented a new policy that bans editorials critical of the president-elect unless they are presented side by side with another opinion piece that expresses the ‘opposite opinion.’
The report continued: “This new restriction, which appears to apply only to matters concerning Trump and not to other officials or topics, has effectively halted several editorials that were written and edited but remained unpublished delayed indefinitely.”
The memo also accused the owner of requiring the editors to send him the text of each editorial and the names of the authors before publication. “The editorial board’s positions and content were preemptively censored before publication, and its arguments, headlines and topics were subjected to boundaries that did not previously exist,” the memo said.
The report is the latest news on the LA Times’ owner’s mission to make the paper a “trusted news source for the middle class,” a mission he went public with when he announced in October that the paper’s editorial board would be resigned would do this do not support a presidential candidate in the 2024 presidential election.
The rejected endorsement was met with major backlash as the newspaper lost over 20,000 subscribers. In response, some journalists and contributors also left the newspaper.
Despite the outrage, the owner continues to push for a nonpartisan LA Times. He announced last month that the newspaper would be a “new editorial team” with diverse voices, including CNN conservative political commentator Scott Jennings.
“Trust in the media is crucial to a strong democracy,” he wrote on X, announcing his ambitions for a new board.
In an interview On Fox News in November, Dr. Soon-Shiong: “It is our responsibility to uphold democracy and express the views of all of our California readers, indeed the views of all readers nationwide. Because if we just…” If you have one side, it becomes nothing more than an echo chamber.”
The LA Times did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
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