LA Times Owner Says He Will ‘Take the Heat’ for Upcoming Newsroom Changes With Trump Supporter Scott Jennings

Patrick Soon-Shiong said that the Los Angeles Times will take the lead and the heat for its upcoming newsroom changes — including appointing conservative CNN contributor Scott Jennings to its editorial board.

The tech billionaire, who prompted a handful of employee resignations when he announced he was restructuring the paper’s approach after his staff’s Kamala Harris endorsement was blocked, reiterated on Tuesday that he is plunging ahead with a proposed “bias meter” despite “the unhappiness about having all sides being heard.”

Soon-Shiong retweeted his new interview with Vanity Fair, with the caption, “We will take the lead… and the heat… but change is needed despite the unhappiness about having all sides being heard, even if you disagree with that view.” He then added a hashtag for his bias meter.

In the article, Soon-Shiong explained that he invited Jennings to take a more active role with the paper because he was “impressed by his demeanor and by the way he would present his point of view, [which] was always with respect.”

Earlier this month, Soon-Shiong detailed how the AI-powered “bias meter” would work: “The reader can press a button and get both sides of that exact same story, based on that story, and then give comments.”

Jennings was added to The Times’ new editorial board after Soon-Shiong was criticized for blocking his staff’s presidential endorsement of Vice President Harris in October. Shortly thereafter, the newspaper owner noted that he wanted to make changes in order to become more “fair and balanced” in light of President-elect Donald Trump winning November’s election.

As TheWrap reported in October, editorial writer Karin Klein and Pulitzer Prize winner Robert Greene both quit the day after Editorial Editor Mariel Garza, who resigned in protest because of the decision to nix the Harris endorsement.

Klein wrote at the time that she objected to Soon-Shiong’s “chickens—t attempt to throw the editorialists under the bus” by blaming the editorial board for the non-endorsement.

In November, the billionaire wrote on X, “It is our obligation to ensure that our readers can tell what is News versus just Opinion. Every American’s views should be heard and we will label Opinion as ‘Voices’ … Voices of California and of the USA.”

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