Free Republic

Soon-Shiong said he was specifically looking for influential conservative voices like Scott Jennings at CNN. Jennings has been a commentator on the left-leaning outlet since 2017. Los Angeles Times owner Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong on Thursday night said that he was looking to hire conservative voices to help balance out the editorial section of his newspaper. Soon-Shiong previously stated that he would be working to make the newspaper more fair moving forward, after deciding not to endorse a presidential candidate in the 2024 elections. Several newspaper owners withheld endorsements in the 2024 elections, with Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos claiming it...

The owner of the Los Angeles Times has fired his entire editorial board as he seeks to return the paper to its journalistic roots. Posting on the X platform, the paper’s owner, Patrick Soon-Shiong, said he was proud to have posted a letter opposing attacks on white women for voting for Donald Trump and that the paper would be undergoing some major changes moving forward: Proud that we posted this letter from one of our readers on X. When the President has won the vote of the majority of Americans then ALL voices must be heard. Opinions are just that

The media world is in a fury: the Washington Post and Los Angeles Times recently announced that they would not endorse a presidential candidate. Editors and columnists at both papers have resigned in protest; readers have cancelled their subscriptions en masse. Why the outrage? Because everyone knew that those papers would have endorsed Kamala Harris. Why the certainty? Because the papers’ coverage of Donald Trump has been so unrelentingly negative. (The decision not to endorse was made by the papers’ owners: Jeff Bezos, in the case of the Post, and medical entrepreneur Patrick Soon-Shiong, in the case of the Times.)...

The daughter of the Los Angeles Times‘s owner explained that the paper’s non-endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris was based on the Biden-Harris administration’s stance on the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. Nika Soon-Shiong, 31, daughter of Patrick Soon-Shiong, the owner of the Los Angeles Times, explained to the New York Times that her family made a “joint decision” to not endorse either Harris or former President Donald Trump.

When President Trump branded these propaganda outfits the enemy of the people, he was right. A few days ago, the Los Angeles Times was in focus when the paper's proprietor, Patrick Soon-Shiong, prevented the paper’s editorial board from endorsing Kamala Harris for president. The L.A. Times is still the largest paper in California and one of the largest in the U.S. The paper exclusively endorsed Republican presidential nominees from its founding in 1881 through 1972 when Richard Nixon ran for re-election in 1972. The paper's pubhlisher, surfin' Otis Chandler, scion of the wealthy Chandler family, was said to have regretted...

The Washington Post's non-endorsement of Donald Trump or Kamala Harris has kicked up controversy. It comes after the LA Times made the same decision. Both papers are owned by billionaires. The non-endorsements are being seen as political statements, whether or not that was the intent. When is something a newspaper doesn't publish a news story? In this case, that's right now. And it's actually two stories: The Washington Post won't be endorsing a presidential candidate this year. The move comes days after the Los Angeles Times made the same decision. The obvious parallel between the two calls is that both...

Former Biden White House Adviser Susan Rice melted down on X after the Washington Post refused to endorse Vice President Kamala Harris, marking a highly embarrassing moment for her campaign. Rice, who critics said actually was a de facto president under Biden, blasted the leftist outlet in a series of tweets Friday afternoon, first saying she is “disgusted.” “As a DC native and lifelong subscriber to the Post, I’m disgusted. You have lost us,” she wrote in her first post. Rice’s rage did not let up. Three minutes later, she mocked the Post’s slogan, “Democracy Dies in Darkness.”

Washington Post staffers are growing restless over the left-leaning paper’s silence on endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris for president — with many suspecting that owner Jeff Bezos is behind the delay, according to a report. Some insiders speculate the billionaire Amazon founder, who has not spoken publicly about the 2024 election, does not want to alienate Republican challenger Donald Trump as he gains momentum to recapture the White House next month, the Status newsletter reported Tuesday. The newspaper’s editorial board is believed to have written its backing for the Democrat but has not gotten the go-ahead to publish it from...

Even though the presidential race between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris remains neck and neck, The Washington Post editorial page has decided not to make a presidential endorsement for the first time in 36 years, the editorial page editor told colleagues at a tense meeting Friday morning. The meeting was characterized by someone with direct knowledge of discussions on condition of anonymity to speak about internal matters.

Even though the presidential race between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris remains neck and neck, The Washington Post has decided not to make a presidential endorsement for the first time in 36 years, the publisher and CEO announced Friday. "We are returning to our roots of not endorsing presidential candidates," Will Lewis wrote. The editorial page editor, David Shipley, told colleagues the news at a tense meeting prior to the announcement. The meeting was characterized by someone with direct knowledge of discussions on condition of anonymity to speak about internal matters.

The Washington Post will not endorse Vice President Kamala Harris for president, according to the paper’s editorial board on Friday. It will be the first time in 36 years that the paper has not endorsed a presidential candidate, a blow to Harris who is already suffering from not being endorsed by the L.A. Times, her hometown paper. The decision allegedly involved Jeff Bezos, who reportedly ordered the non-endorsement with the early vote trends appearing to favor former President Donald Trump. Bezos, the owner of the paper, has several large contracts with the U.S. government. NPR’s media correspondent David Folkenflik reported...

The Washington Post’s chief executive told the newsroom on Friday that it would not endorse a presidential candidate, breaking with decades of precedent at the newspaper. “The Washington Post will not be making an endorsement of a presidential candidate in this election,” wrote Will Lewis, The Post’s chief executive. “Nor in any future presidential election. We are returning to our roots of not endorsing presidential candidates.” The Post has endorsed presidential candidates since 1976, Mr. Lewis wrote, when it gave its stamp of approval to Jimmy Carter, who went on to win the election. Before that, it generally did not...

The union representing employees of the Los Angeles Times implored readers not to cancel their subscriptions after criticizing the owner for his role in the paper's controversial decision not to offer a presidential endorsement this year. Semafor first reported the non-endorsement Tuesday, saying the decision came from the paper’s owner, Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong. L.A. Times editorials editor Mariel Garza, who resigned the next day over the issue, also pinned the blame on the owner. However, Soon-Shiong claimed on X Wednesday that it was the Times editorial board that chose not to offer an endorsement, not him, and he had accepted...

The editorials editor for the Los Angeles Times stepped down Wednesday after the newspaper’s billionaire owner stopped the publication’s expected endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris. Mariel Garza is leaving her post at the Times because she wants “to make it clear that I am not OK with us being silent” after biotech entrepreneur Patrick Soon-Shiong scrapped the paper’s endorsement for president. “In dangerous times, honest people need to stand up,” Garza told the Columbia Journalism Review she said. “This is how I’m standing up.” Last week, Soon-Shiong told the newspaper’s editorial board through the outlet’s editor that the LA...

The billionaire owner of the Los Angeles Times has reportedly blocked its editorial board from endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris for president. Members of the newspaper's editorial board were prepared to endorse Harris for commander in chief until a shock announcement from executive editor Terry Tang. ... She reportedly said the decision came straight from the paper's owner, Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, a doctor who made his fortune in the healthcare industry. The decision marks a major departure for Harris' home state newspaper, which has exclusively endorsed Democratic presidential candidates since then-Senator Barack Obama ran in 2008....

A billionaire bought one of America’s biggest newspapers. Then he put his 28-year old daughter with deep ties to socialist organizations in charge You may have seen the articles, but it’s actually worse than reported… And the consequences could affect every resident of LA🧵👇 This is Patrick Soon-Shiong. He’s a doctor and bio-tech entrepreneur with reported net worth of over $8 Billion. (1/20) He bought a piece of the Lakers off Magic Johnson. (2/20) He also owns the LA Times. Which despite its flailing circulation and revenue, remains an important civic asset. (3/20) amp.theguardian.com/media/2018/jul… https://amp.theguardian.com/media/2018/jul/21/los-angeles-times-new-owner-patrick-soon-shiong-interview This is his daughter Nika...

As Elon Musk attempts to purchase Twitter, many journalists and political commentators have viewed the Tesla CEO's plans to take over the social media giant as detrimental, and have slammed the idea of billionaire ownership, yet several liberal media organizations are themselves owned by billionaires. The Washington Post Amazon founder and billionaire Jeff Bezos purchased the Washington Post in 2016 for $250 million. The Atlantic Laurene Powell Jobs, the widow of Steve Jobs, became the majority owner of The Atlantic in 2017. TIME Marc Beinoff, the billionaire CEO of Salesforce, and his wife Lynne, purchased TIME in 2018 for $190...

[H/T Jane Long]Funny story.A month ago The New Yorker wrote a long piece on Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, who owns the Los Angeles Times and is the richest man in Los Angeles.Dr. Soon-Shiong made his billions thanks to a chemotherapy drug called Abraxane, which is a repatented and dressed-up version of a nasty and somewhat effective drug called paclitaxel. Abraxane came out in 2005 and was among the first cancer drugs to cost a few thousand dollars a month - a price that seems almost quaint now, when some cost 10 times that much. (Because pharmaceutical companies are all about helping...

In an interview last year, Mr. Freeman argued that the austere cuts enacted at his newspapers reflected a more realistic understanding of the industry’s direction and better positioned Alden-owned publishers for the pandemic’s downswing. “We were prepared for a real step down in terms of a recession because we were honest about what was needed in the future,” he said. “Numbers don’t lie.” The newspaper industry’s numbers looked bleak even before the pandemic. Annual advertising revenue dropped 70%, or $34 billion, between 2005 and 2018, according to estimates by the Pew Research Center. More than 1,800 newspapers closed between 2004...

The Los Angeles Times touted a new media lobbying effort to expand federal ad spending by billions of dollars for local media companies. In a story headlined, “Rocked by coronavirus losses, TV, radio, newspapers seek government ad dollars,” The Times pushed the case for expanded government-funding of media outlets. “Every year the federal government spends around $1 billion in advertising to promote its programs and military recruitment,” The Times said. The outlet also pulled on the heart strings of its readers. It stated how media companies were “financially devastated by the coronavirus outbreak, “even as the hunger for news and information...