LA Times Owner's Planned ‘Bias Meter’ Triggers Outrage, Resignation

LOS ANGELES, CA — The billionaire owner of The Los Angeles Times announced plans to institute a "bias meter" on every story, putting him at odds with the union representing the paper's staff and prompting at least one high-profile resignation.

On Scott Jennings’s “Flyover Country” podcast Thursday, Times owner Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong said he thought his own paper had become “an echo chamber and not a trusted source.”

To fix the perceived problem, he said the paper would soon institute a technology-based bias meter on every story and opinion column.

On the articles, “you have a bias meter so somebody could understand, as a reader, that the source of the article has some level of bias,” he said. “And what we need to do is not have what we call confirmation bias, and then that story automatically — the reader can press a button and get both sides of that exact same story based on that story, and then give comments.”

The LA Times Guild was quick to respond.

"Recently, the newspaper’s owner has publicly suggested his staff harbors bias, without offering evidence or examples. The statements came after the owner blocked a presidential endorsement by the newspaper’s editorial board, then unfairly blamed editorial board staffers for his decision," the Guild posted in a statement on its website.

"Our members — and all Times staffers — abide by a strict set of ethics guidelines, which call for fairness, precision, transparency, vigilance against bias, and an earnest search to understand all sides of an issue. Those longstanding principles will continue guiding our work."

According to the New York Times, Soon-Shiong has said he wants to see his paper have more conservative voices. In the run-up to the election, he sent shockwaves through the newsroom and the industry by barring the paper from endorsing a presidential candidate, breaking from longstanding tradition. The editorial board was prepared to endorse Democrat Kamala Harris.

The move was seen as a win for Donald Trump. Similarly, The Washington Post billionaire owner Jeff Bezos barred his paper from endorsing Harris. Both papers suffered widespread cancelations and high-profile resignations as a result.

Their critics contend the billionaire owners chose self-interest over public interest by jettisoning journalistic independence to kowtow to a candidate who promised revenge against his enemies and frequently railed against the free-press as the "enemy of the people."

The guild on Thursday reiterated that Times reporters are committed to journalistic independence, regardless of those in power.

"Journalists of the Los Angeles Times are committed to shining a light on injustice, exposing wrongdoing, and seeking the facts," the guild wrote. "We speak truth to power, regardless of which party is in power."

Harry Litman, a senior legal affairs columnist for the Times’s Opinion section, resigned in protest over Soon-Shiong's latest announcement.

He explained his decision in a blistering column on Substack.

"Yesterday, I resigned my position. I don’t want to continue to work for a paper that is appeasing Trump and facilitating his assault on democratic rule for craven reasons," he wrote.

"My resignation is a protest and visceral reaction against the conduct of the paper’s owner, Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong. Soon-Shiong has made several moves to force the paper, over the forceful objections of his staff, into a posture more sympathetic to Donald Trump. Those moves can’t be defended as the sort of policy adjustment papers undergo from time to time, and that an owner, within limits, is entitled to influence. Given the existential stakes for our democracy that I believe Trump’s second term poses, and the evidence that Soon-Shiong is currying favor with the President-elect, they are repugnant and dangerous."

He cited Soon-Shiong's decision to bar the Harris endorsement as an example of kowtowing.

"The plain inference, and the one that readers and national observers have adopted, is that he wanted to hedge his bets in case Trump won—not even to protect the paper’s fortunes but rather his multi-billion-dollar holdings in other fields," added Litman. "It seems evident that he was currying favor with Trump and capitulating to the President-elect’s well-known pettiness and vengefulness.

"Trump has made it clear that he will make trouble for media outlets that cross him. Rather than reacting with indignation at this challenge to his paper’s critical function in a democracy, Soon-Shiong threw the paper to the wolves. That was cowardly."

Soon-Shiong has not publicly responded to Litman's allegations.