Would Patrick Soon-Shiong Sell the LA Times? Would Anyone Buy It? 

Would the billionaire owner of the Los Angeles Times, Patrick Soon-Shiong, consider selling? 

There’s every good reason to think so.   

With his newsroom staff in open revolt, with Soon-Shiong expressing open contempt of said staff, with layoffs and resignations adding more distrust to the mix and with the paper continuing to lose readers and millions of dollars a month, perhaps the better question would be: Why would he want to keep it? 

Let’s recap:

Soon-Shiong bought the paper in 2018 for $500 million, well over market value, thinking he would be the white knight to turn around the flagship’s declining readership and revenue. By all accounts, he also hoped to win status as a civic leader and gain lobbying clout in Sacramento and Washington DC for his pharmaceutical research, the source of his billions. 

But the paper continued to decline under his ownership, despite Soon-Shiong’s investment in the staff, a new building near the airport in El Segundo, a sizzle-y kitchen for a relaunched cooking section and, finally, an exciting leadership hire in respected executive editor Kevin Merida, formerly of ESPN and The Washington Post. 

Just a half-dozen years later, all those investments have disappeared. The building is mostly  empty because of COVID restrictions. The newsroom staff has been slashed from a high of 1,000 journalists to just 400. Merida resigned a year ago over Soon-Shiong’s newsroom interference – and the owner himself has gone MAGA, which included spiking an editorial endorsement of Kamala Harris and expressing support for controversial Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

What feels like a final chapter set in last weekend as about 40 veteran journalists – including senior writer Jeffrey Fleishman, staff writer Tracy Wilkinson and national and foreign editor Alan Zarembo – took buyouts and retired. With this, a massive trove of institutional knowledge walked out the door. This coincided with TheWrap breaking the news of the resignation of De Los editor Paloma Esquivel, who cited bullying by the managing editor Hector Becerra as her reason. A spokeswoman said the claims were “false.” On Wednesday, TheWrap confirmed another half-dozen staff who filed a joint HR complaint against Becerra before he was promoted. 

“This paper doesn’t represent who I am as a journalist. What I want to be,” said a veteran journalist who left in recent days.  “It has lost the soul and spirit a paper should have. It’s been so kicked and so beleaguered for so long.”

And now it’s being kicked and beleaguered by its own owner. The worst indignity of late was Soon-Shiong dissing his own reporter in a podcast interview to Dr. Drew, in which he said reporter Jaclyn Cosgrove had done something wrong (she hadn’t) in reporting on host Drew Pinsky: “That was supposed to be then a news report, rather than opinion — and that’s what I also think is wrong about media here. You have to be fair,” Soon-Shiong said. The guild sent a letter of complaint.  

Soon-Shiong’s effort to turn the paper to the right isn’t going so well. This week saw the launch and then retraction of a new AI-powered “Insights” feature – Soon-Shiong’s new “bias meter” – on a column by star writer Gustavo Arellano after AI tried to defend the Ku Klux Klan. It was only Monday when Soon-Shiong touted the new tool on X, noting:  “No more echo chamber,” apparently referring to his own paper. 

But maybe he ought to just shed the “echo chamber.” 

After all, the billionaire has expressed much more enthusiasm for a stealth, new, media project, a conservative, digital-first platform to feature the likes of conspiracy theorist Candace Owens, Trump stalwart Scott Jennings and possibly Cheryl Hines, wife of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr. According to one report, it would be called LA Times Next. 

Maybe just drop the word “Times” and do the “Next” part? 

The problem is, there does not seem to be an obvious candidate to buy the paper, even if Soon-Shiong has had enough. 

Over the past two years I’ve spoken to civic leaders, billionaires and bankers to inquire who might be interested. Without revealing any sources, I can tell you that Jeffrey Katzenberg –  who often will step up to civic leadership roles — is not. Neither is billionaire Haim Saban. Or Disney chief Bob Iger, whose wife Willow Bay leads USC’s journalism school, Annenberg. Investor Austin Beuttner already swung and missed. Peter Guber, who invested in the Dodgers and has bought multiple West Coast sports teams, is not game for this. 

Is there a consortium of wealthy leaders who might see the benefit of taking over the LA Times? Did I mention that last we checked it was losing $50 million a year? 

“The only buyers of an LA Times or WashPost now will be financial bottom-feeders – Alden Global Capital – or opportunistic MAGA billionaires,” said a veteran business journalist who declined to be identified. “What civic-minded one-percenters would want the headache of owning a media property under MAGA?”

I spoke to the president of a leading investment bank in Los Angeles who declined to be identified. Sadly, he confirmed, no one he knew would be interested in buying the LA Times. When asked why he kind of shrugged: it’s not a priority. And, clearly, local journalism is a headache.

So we have to work harder at this. 

I spoke to several journalists who recently left, and the sadness of what the Times has lost in these last few years is widespread. The news editor, Terry Tang, has “lost the newsroom,” I heard more than once. If she stands up to Soon-Shiong, as she has privately told her deputies, it has not registered with the staff. And if she stands up publicly, she might well lose her job or, like Merida, feel compelled to resign. 

A surge of pride accompanied the recent Times coverage of the L.A. fires, which reminded everyone in the newsroom why the paper is such a critical institution in Los Angeles. 

But it didn’t last long, with the buyouts and resignations that quickly followed, and the creeping suspicion that the Times doesn’t know who it is, where its audience is and why it exists. The Latino audience has not signed on despite significant efforts to draw them in, while the paper has successively alienated its base of Hollywood players and monied patrons in Pasadena.  

“Who are you? Are you 101 Hiking Guides? Best restaurants? Or Trump? Or Ukraine?” said the  frustrated former staffer. And with Soon-Shiong’s turn to the right, “now there’s scant coverage of this defining moment in America.”

That said, to many the idea of Soon-Shiong retaining an asset that he seems to deeply distrust makes no sense. 

“It’s like a weird conspiracy theory,” said the former staffer. “A guy overpays for a paper, doesn’t understand what he’s bought, then is overwhelmed, then staff turns on him – the emperor has no clothes – and Boom. Here you are.”

Emails to Soon-Shiong’s spokesperson at Nantworks and to the LA Times spokeswoman went unanswered.

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