Free Republic

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...

Is it time to Make Los Angeles Great Again? After almost two decades of corporate ownership, the Los Angeles Times will revert back to private control — under an owner with professed skepticism about journalism. Billionaire doctor and investor Patrick Soon-Shiong will cough up nearly $600 million to take full control of the paper, a figure that dwarfs what Jeff Bezos paid for the Washington Post a few years back: