LA Times billionaire owner killed op-ed that was critical of Trump’s cabinet picks, report says

Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox Get our free Inside Washington email Get our free Inside Washington email SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy Los Angeles Times owner Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong killed an opinion column that was critical of President-elect Donald Trump’s recent Cabinet picks, telling his paper’s editorial board that it could only publish the piece if it also ran an editorial with an opposing view, according to The New York Times. That column was headlined, “Trump has a chance to be a true education president.” CNN’s Reliable Sources reported on Friday morning that besides Soon-Shiong spiking the editorial, several recent opinion section headlines were also “softened” or “made more bland” by editors concerned that “anything too harsh would get rejected” by the billionaire owner. This is the latest instance of Soon-Shiong pushing his paper to take a more Trump-friendly approach as he attempts to make the Times, in his words, more “balanced” and less of a liberal “echo chamber.” The billionaire medical tech entrepreneur, who purchased the LA Times for $500 million in 2018, has drawn staff outrage for months over his meddling with the paper’s coverage while seeking to recast the editorial board to include more conservative voices. The Times guild quickly met his proposal with a rebuke, which said Soon-Shiong had “publicly suggested his staff harbors bias, without offering evidence or examples.” Soon-Shiong isn’t the only billionaire owner of a large American newspaper that has taken heat from staff and readers for taking a softened stance towards Trump.