{"id":1652647,"date":"2022-09-22T07:38:52","date_gmt":"2022-09-22T11:38:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1652647"},"modified":"2022-09-22T07:39:26","modified_gmt":"2022-09-22T11:39:26","slug":"it-looks-like-trouble-is-brewing-at-the-la-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/it-looks-like-trouble-is-brewing-at-the-la-times\/","title":{"rendered":"It Looks Like Trouble Is Brewing at the LA Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">20<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fit-looks-like-trouble-is-brewing-at-the-la-times%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1652647&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><\/div>\n<aside id=\"aside1\" class=\"left\">\n<\/aside>\n<p>Like many legacy publications, The Los Angeles Times faces an uncertain future with the media industry\u2019s changing environment. The surge towards digitalization and the integration of video and social media has forced every media company, large and small, to adapt. Some succeed while others fail, which is the nature of the market.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The LA Times reportedly was in a period of limbo, a shell of its former self with a staff of over a little over 500 employees. It used to be a well-oiled journalistic machine with some 1,200 writers. That changed in 2018 when wealthy pharmaceutical executive Patrick Soon-Shiong purchased the paper and promised stability and a journalistic plan for the 21<sup>st<\/sup> Century. He promised new offices and what could only be described as a blank check regarding returning this paper to its former glory. Yet, the Soon-Shiong ownership has also come with a healthy dose of internal strife and drama, some of which border ethical boundaries.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">NEW: Tensions are rising between the LA Times and its billionaire owner Patrick Soon-Shiong. The ownership family faces accusations of meddling in coverage and endorsements, and there is intense turmoil within the ranks. (w\/ <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ccadelago?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@ccadelago<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/maxwelltani?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@maxwelltani<\/a>) <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/8D710Xr9Aw\">https:\/\/t.co\/8D710Xr9Aw<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Daniel Lippman (@dlippman) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/dlippman\/status\/1571624796168798216?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">September 18, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">No sooner did Soon-Shiong hail Kevin Merida\u2019s hiring but then made his job more difficult. The owner did not call some of the other internal candidates to thank them for applying, a person familiar with the matter told me, creating some bitterness within the newsroom.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Daniel Lippman (@dlippman) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/dlippman\/status\/1571627934955307009?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">September 18, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-conversation=\"none\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Shortly after the election, new DC bureau chief Kimbriell Kelly began butting heads with one of the bureau\u2019s top staffers, Jackie Calmes. On one call Kelly told Calmes that her grief over two recently deceased family members was affecting her work, four people told us.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Daniel Lippman (@dlippman) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/dlippman\/status\/1571628390150447105?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">September 18, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">NEW: Tensions are rising between the LA Times and its billionaire owner Patrick Soon-Shiong. The ownership family faces accusations of meddling in coverage and endorsements, and there is intense turmoil within the ranks. (w\/ <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ccadelago?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@ccadelago<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/maxwelltani?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@maxwelltani<\/a>) <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/8D710Xr9Aw\">https:\/\/t.co\/8D710Xr9Aw<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Daniel Lippman (@dlippman) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/dlippman\/status\/1571624796168798216?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">September 18, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">No sooner did Soon-Shiong hail Kevin Merida\u2019s hiring but then made his job more difficult. The owner did not call some of the other internal candidates to thank them for applying, a person familiar with the matter told me, creating some bitterness within the newsroom.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Daniel Lippman (@dlippman) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/dlippman\/status\/1571627934955307009?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">September 18, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-conversation=\"none\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Shortly after the election, new DC bureau chief Kimbriell Kelly began butting heads with one of the bureau\u2019s top staffers, Jackie Calmes. On one call Kelly told Calmes that her grief over two recently deceased family members was affecting her work, four people told us.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Daniel Lippman (@dlippman) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/dlippman\/status\/1571628390150447105?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">September 18, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Politico did a deep-dive on the internal conflicts engulfing the LA Times, speaking with dozens of former and current staffers off the record who describe the work environment as tense, especially with Nika Soon-Shiong allegedly meddling regarding the paper\u2019s endorsement and its coverage. Nika is a \u2018woke\u2019 lefty who is an associate of the non-profit Fund for Guaranteed Income, which you could guess advocates for free money to be given to \u201cvulnerable people.\u201d She also spearheaded the move to cut funding to the Los Angeles County Sheriff\u2019s Department and was appointed to become West Hollywood Public Safety Commissioner. The latter has been a gray area regarding journalistic ethics because she has pitched what the commission is doing to the paper\u2019s reporters, asking them to do articles about their work.<\/p>\n<p>Ms. Soon-Shiong has also instructed reporters on a new lefty guideline regarding reporting on crime in the city. She wants writers to eschew using words like \u201clooting\u201d and lambasted a junior LA Times reporter for a story about suspects stealing watches and then fleeing in a Black Rolls-Royce. According to Politico, Activist Los Angeles torched the 190-word story as being a press release by the police, and Ms. Soon-Shiong also joined in raking the writer over the coals. Later, the paper won a Pulitzer for photography and held an awkward all-staff meeting to celebrate the award and praise its photographer. You can\u2019t bash your newspaper and love it too\u2014that\u2019s not healthy. That\u2019s schizophrenia.<\/p>\n<p>The younger Soon-Shiong has been accused of meddling in the paper\u2019s endorsement process in local elections, with every candidate being connected to the family in some fashion. Nika isn\u2019t the only family member who has skirted perilously close to unethical uses of their medium. Patrick Soon-Shiong was featured in an LA Times video promoting a COVID vaccine that his company was manufacturing but had not been approved in the United States. That\u2019s one flaw this father-daughter duo reportedly shares. Still, while Nika\u2019s meddling in the reporting side\u2014allegedly\u2014has raised eyebrows, the elder Soon-Shiong\u2019s management skills have also increased the staff\u2019s blood pressure. The word that describes Mr. Soon Shiong\u2019s handling of the paper is purely paradoxical. One word tossed around in the Politico piece was \u201cephemeral,\u201d and marked by the drop-in of the big boss with other vested interests like his other paper, the San Diego Union-Tribune. He\u2019s also reportedly a potential buyer for the Los Angeles Angels.<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Soon-Shiong is an \u201cabsentee landlord and also a micromanager\u201d who\u2014 according to Politico\u2014is also paralyzed by indecision. Those attributes are not ones you want to hear about a newspaper\u2019s general manager in the face of an ever-changing business landscape that requires swift and sweeping decisions. Soon-Shiong has made some regarding the latter but is marked by a come-and-go attitude. It\u2019s like a media-based hurricane season with Soon-Shiong.<\/p>\n<p>One of the more damning aspects of the new ownership is that they don\u2019t care about the history of the paper. There\u2019s no plan to update its publishing infrastructure into a more efficient, technologically up-to-date operation. It\u2019s reportedly still antiquated in some essential areas. What\u2019s the mission of the LA Times? What\u2019s the plan regarding the administrative and business side of the paper? What\u2019s the plan, Stan? Those are unknown qualities right now. Nika is set to leave the States to pursue a doctoral degree in the UK, but the ongoing managerial issues will remain. The DC Bureau has also gone astray, with scores of reporters leaving to greener pastures. While the Soon-Shiong family has the money to turn things around\u2014they don\u2019t know the business, which could exacerbate these ongoing internal grievances.<\/p>\n<p>The hiring of Kevin Merida as the paper\u2019s new executive editor was seen as a top move, as he\u2019s one of the most sought-after editors in the country. He\u2019s also decided to step into the interlocutor role between the Soon-Shiong family and the rest of the staff, which is no easy task.<\/p>\n<p>While liberal bias is always an issue, the cancer at the LA Times appears to be grounded in its direction and what it wants to do more than anything else. The owner&#8217;s daughter being a full-throated lefty activist also didn\u2019t help, presenting ethical quandaries that were wholly unforced errors. The LA Times is a ship with a partial rudder which, based on this piece, is in dire need of repairs or it will hit the rocks\u2014a concern that seems to be shared by the publication\u2019s employees.<\/p>\n<figure><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Like many legacy publications, The Los Angeles Times faces an uncertain future with the media industry\u2019s changing environment. The surge towards digitalization and the integration of video and<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1652650,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1652647","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1652647","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1652647"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1652647\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1652650"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1652647"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1652647"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1652647"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}