The owner of the Los Angeles Times has demanded that his editorial board relax on its attacks against President-elect Donald Trump.
Former CNN journalist Oliver Darcy said that he discovered a memo from The Times staff in which some complained that Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, the owner of the newspaper, has been stepping in to stop negative editorials about the president-elect, Fox News reported.
The memo, which was sent to Executive Editor Terry Tang, was signed by several Opinion section staffers who said that the owner asked the editorial board to “take a break from writing about” the president-elect.
The staffers said they were concerned by what they considered to be the owner’s “alarming actions,” and said that they are committed to reporting “anything that might cast a shadow on the Times’ reputation,” the report said.
“We understand that Dr. Soon-Shiong has a role in shaping the tone and direction of the editorial board and Opinion section, but we are still bound by the core values and ethics of journalism, including a duty to be transparent and act in service of the public,” the memo said.
“We believe we have an obligation to report these under the ethics policy, which states that ‘the primary goal always should be to protect The Times’ integrity,’” it said.
The memo said that the owner “instituted a new policy that prohibits editorials containing criticism of the president-elect unless they are presented side-by-side with another opinion piece representing the ‘opposing view.’”
“This new restriction, which appears to apply only to matters involving Trump and not to other officials or issues, has effectively killed or indefinitely delayed multiple editorials that have been written and edited but remain unpublished,” it said.
The memo said that the owner now wants board members to send him every piece for approval before publishing.
“Editorial board positions and content have been preemptively censored before publication, and its arguments, headlines and topics subjected to boundaries that did not previously exist,” the memo said.
It is just one of the changes that the new owner has been making to The Times.
In November it was reported that Soon-Shiong is changing his editorial board as the legacy media continues to struggle.
For generations, newspapers have tended to be liberal, and their editorial boards have continued to endorse only Democrat presidential candidates, making them less and less relevant.
But The Times’ owner made a decision to add a fresh conservative voice to his editorial board as he hired conservative CNN commentator Scott Jennings.
Advertisement
“It’s true—I’ve accepted Dr. Soon-Shiong’s invitation to join the editorial board of the Los Angeles Times,” he said on X. “I’ve written columns for the paper over the last few years and was honored to do so under such a storied and important masthead. I love newspapers and believe in strong journalism and strong opinion pages that represent a wide array of views.”
