The Los Angeles Timeslost roughly $50 million last year, according to AdWeek, as its right-leaning billionaire owner Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong takes a bludgeon to the paper’s operations. L.A. Times Studios President Anna Magzanyan’s disclosure to staff comes after Soon-Shiong has tried to remake the paper he purchased in 2018 into one less focused on politics—or critical of Donald Trump. Soon-Shiong blocked the paper’s endorsement of Kamala Harris last year, and he has since added a AI-powered “bias meter” that reveals opinion columns’ political tone. He has also explored partnering with conservative podcaster and conspiracy theorist Candace Owens for his upcoming “LAT Next” venture. Soon-Shiong’s actions, alongside L.A.’s devastating fires that upended subscriber-dense neighborhoods like the Pacific Palisades, have pushed away both paying customers and advertisers, according to AdWeek. “I don’t see the paper having a very long life if this continues,” one source familiar with the situation told the outlet.
