The L.A. Times is harming our environment by still printing a few pages each day, it is killing needed trees. Anybody actually read that paper? Do they care what is said on the editorial pages—or the front page which is used as an editorial against freedom, parents and productive people.
“It won a few Pulitzer Prizes and was led by Executive Editor Kevin Merida, who brought two decades of experience from the Washington Post via ESPN.
Except this Times kept hemorrhaging readers, advertisers and revenue.
Except this Times, according to sources, lacked the structure of a formal, professional news outlet.
Except this Times was treated as a PlayStation video game console, with its owner and — worse — his disruptor, activist and quasi-socialist daughter Nika Soon-Shiong continually pushing its buttons to reflect their wishes rather than the public’s needs.”
Oh, it is no longer the Los Angeles Times—it is the El Segundo Times where it headquarters.
“How Does LA Times’ Own Story End?” by Daniel Guss
Three scenarios for owner Patrick Soon-Shiong. One likely, two bold. Too bad.
DANIEL.GUSS, danielguss subtrack, 1/17/24 https://danielguss.substack.com/p/how-does-la-times-own-story-end-by
@TheGussReport — In 2018, Patrick Soon-Shiong bought the portion of the Los Angeles Times that he did not already own for an estimated $500 million plus $90 million in pension obligations. According to a variety of sources, he has poured into it nearly $300 million more since then to grow its capabilities and plug its harrowing revenue failures.
Had he not done this, the iconic, relevant-but-fading news outlet would by now likely have been given the hedge fund mandoline slicer treatment and would be functioning today as a spoke in a homogenous journalism bicycle wheel.
A case can be made that it already does.
But because Soon-Shiong is worth an estimated $5-$8 billion, as opposed to the $177 billion estimated worth of Jeff Bezos, who owns the more-iconic, too big to fail Washington Post, the losses are beginning to pinch.
Careful what you wish for
The celebration of the Times’ first local ownership in decades, and the formation of the L.A. Times Guild, was certain to put it on the road to success, depending on how one defines it.
It won a few Pulitzer Prizes and was led by Executive Editor Kevin Merida, who brought two decades of experience from the Washington Post via ESPN.
Except this Times kept hemorrhaging readers, advertisers and revenue.
Except this Times, according to sources, lacked the structure of a formal, professional news outlet.
Except this Times was treated as a PlayStation video game console, with its owner and — worse — his disruptor, activist and quasi-socialist daughter Nika Soon-Shiong continually pushing its buttons to reflect their wishes rather than the public’s needs.
No real surprise, but Merida and Soon-Shiong announced the former’s exit a few days ago after just 2 1/2 rocky years.
All the public knows is that the Times keeps doubling-down on agenda-driven, ivory tower content that continues sinking the rest of us, particularly with its:
- copious cultural pandering
- far left political endorsements (e.g. Garcetti, Gavin, Gascon and Karen) and
- untrustworthy local political reporting.
To that last point, I demonstrated last week how, Dakota Smith, one of its City Hall reporters, allegedly called a former LA Animal Services veterinarian after my recent exposé on the District Attorney’s criminal investigation into inhumane pound conditions, asking him “are you mad at me?” The vet says that Smith asked this because a year earlier, he tipped her off to the hideous pound conditions, but that she ignored them and cut-off all contact with him… until my exposé.
No response, denial or demand for a correction from Smith or the Times.
A billionaire’s money can’t repurchase the public’s lost trust.
And the truth is, the Times is failing miserably in its quest to get the attention of the young Latinos whose eyes, dollars and voting power it salivates to influence under the (dis)guise of helping to inform them.
That said…
This column sees only three scenarios for the Los Angeles Times in the next 1-3 years. The first is, by far, the likeliest.
- Soon-Shiong holds, but folds
One needn’t have an MBA to see that Patrick Soon-Shiong vastly overpaid for the Times and its related assets which, like many of its employees, have been continually trimmed in recent years. Other massively overpriced newspaper sales, like the Boston Globe a few decades ago, apparently didn’t register with him.
But like any astute business person with an ego, there is only so much financial pain and embarrassment he is going to absorb, though he clearly has enough assets to do just that. Still, without a transformative catalyst on the horizon, the likeliest scenario is the eventual sale of the Times to the hedge fund people who continue gobbling up and consolidating old school newspapers at fire sale prices.
- Rethink what Los Angeles and Southern California needs and do it boldly
Imagine what the Los Angeles Times could be if, in an all-hands meeting, with new leadership, it decided to drop its far left agenda, stop protecting politicians by being their echo chamber and go for full-bore transparency as a hard-hitting, investigatory outlet that looks under every table, behind each closed door and deep into public records.
Its directive to staffers with agendas would be get on-board or get out.
This would require skepticism about everything that politicians, governments, corporations, unions and government-tied non-profits tell us by asking vigorous questions directly rather than through chummy relationships with their spokespeople and then running those claims through skilled, independent number-crunchers.
The Los Angeles Times still has that capability, if not the will. Much of everything else could be substantially pared to proportionally meet the public’s needs.
Of course, this would be like asking a leopard to trade-in its spots for stripes.
And it would require courage.
- Soon-Shiong saves face, creates a non-profit and walks away.
If Patrick Soon-Shiong wants a face-saving way out of his money-burning, disastrous ownership of the Times, here is what I suggest he consider if Option 2, above, is a non-starter.
Create a non-profit, also known as a 501(c)(3) public benefit corporation; a status which is easily obtained by the lawyers explaining in the filing how its sole asset — the LA Times — is being donated to it for the sole purpose of vigorously transparent journalism.
This would allow him to appoint his far leftist, disrupter daughter as its Chair for eternity, and have its reporters, columnists and opinion writers have at it in a sink-or-swim scenario.
This would also afford Soon-Shiong the multi-pronged benefit of (a) benevolently saving face; (b) freeing everyone involved to collectively steer the ship; and (c) garner himself a massive tax deduction without subjecting himself to the ridicule of selling it to a hedge fund that, as it now appears, may eventually squeeze the life out of the Times in a not distant fire sale.
This would let him cut his losses at about a billion dollars before that deduction is applied.
Otherwise, the Los Angeles Times will continue doubling-down on content that most of its potential readership has already soundly rejected, especially (gasp!) young people of color.
Truthfully, there are no other scenarios for the Times. One likely. Two bold. Too bad.
Good luck with all of that.
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