L.A. Times owner reportedly 'alarming' staff with demands for editorial board to relax on Trump criticism
The owner of The Los Angeles Times has directed his outlet’s editorial board to pull back from writing about President-elect Donald Trump, according to a new report.
Ex-CNN journalist Oliver Darcy reported on a memo he obtained from Times staff complaining about how owner Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong has been directly stepping in when it comes to the paper publishing articles critical of Trump, as well as making other editorial decisions.
According to the memo, which was sent to Executive Editor Terry Tang and signed by multiple Opinion section staffers, Dr. Soon-Shiong instructed the editorial board to "take a break from writing about" the president-elect.
Staffers signed off on the memo because they viewed Dr. Soon-Shiong's moves as "alarming actions," and noted their commitment to reporting "anything that might cast a shadow on the Times’ reputation," according to the report.
"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 read.
It added, "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.’"
The memo also alleged that Dr. Soon-Shiong has "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.’"
The report continued, "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issues, has effectively killed or indefinitely delayed multiple editorials that have been written and edited but remain unpublished."
The memo also accused the owner of requiring the editorial board to send him text of every editorial and their authors’ names before they’re published. "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 noted.
The report is the latest news about the L.A. Times owner’s mission to make the paper a "middle-of-the-road, trustworthy news source," a mission he went public with upon announcing in October that the paper’s editorial board would not be endorsing a presidential candidate in the 2024 presidential election.
The declined endorsement received a major backlash, with the paper losing over 20,000 subscribers. Some journalists and contributors also quit the paper in response.
Despite the outrage, the owner has continued pushing for a non-partisan L.A. Times. He announced last month that the paper would be forming a "new Editorial Board" with diverse voices on it, including conservative CNN political commentator, Scott Jennings.
"Trust in media is critical for a strong democracy," he wrote on X while touting his ambitions for a new board.
In an interview with Fox News in November, Dr. Soon-Shiong said, "It is our responsibility to maintain democracy, to have the views of all our California readers, in fact, the views of all the national readers to be aired. Because if we just have the one side, it becomes nothing else but an echo chamber."
The L.A. Times did not immediately reply to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.