The owner of the once-hyper liberal Los Angeles Times, Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, discussed how he’s ridding bias at the paper and why he’s a big supporter of two key Trump nominees in the health sphere, RFK Jr. and Dr. Marty Makary, during a wide-ranging interview with Morning Wire host Georgia Howe.
Soon-Shiong made waves in October when he announced that the LA Times would not be endorsing a candidate for the 2024 election, while it was widely assumed that the paper would back Vice President Kamala Harris. Further, the transplant surgeon doubled-down on the sentiment in November, upending the editorial practices at the LA Times and adding conservative heavyweight and CNN contributor Scott Jennings to his editorial board.
Asked about the risks of taking his liberal paper in a more balanced direction, Soon-Shiong stated frankly that “leaders have to lead.”
“I’m recognizing the risks,” he said. “And my concern was, we were writing opinions based on only one side, recognizing that California is a very blue state.”
“But I didn’t want to be just the voice of California,” he continued. “I wanted to be a voice of the nation. More importantly, I want to be the voice of truth.”
“Our editorials are written by a group of writers who meet three times a week to discuss and debate issues,” Soon-Shiong explained. “If the group of writers — again, I’m getting into trouble for this, but so be it — are an echo chamber of themselves, we just get a one-sided view.”
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On refusing to endorse a candidate in 2024, Soon-Shiong again said, “Leaders have to lead.”
“We led, and interestingly enough, a day later or two days later, Jeff Bezos followed,” he said, referring to the Bezos-owned Washington Post deciding to bypass an endorsement. “Whether he followed us or whether he followed on his own accord, I have no idea.”
“My motivation was very clear,” he continued. “I did not believe in an echo-chamber, pre-package endorsement. … I just wanted some fair, factual statements to be put out there.”
“The editorial board elected to, rather than do that, keep quiet about it, which I supported,” Soon-Shiong explained.
A leading medical researcher and surgeon himself, Soon-Shiong said he felt inspired by Trump’s pick to lead Health and Human Services, RFK Jr., and Dr. Marty Makary to lead the Food and Drug Administration.
Despite some backlash to the announcement of Kennedy’s nomination, what RFK Jr. “says is fundamentally correct,” Soon-Shiong said. “We have huge amounts of toxic materials, we have a rising incidence of cancer, [and] he was the first to talk about PFAS.”
“My other concern was, with regard to the care of a patient, you really cannot have the touch and feel from some academic bureaucrat versus somebody who has actually touched and felt patients,” Soon-Shiong continued. “And when he nominated Dr. Marty Makary, a Johns Hopkins surgeon, as the FDA head, that was such a breath of fresh air.”
Another “breath of fresh air” was the nomination of Dr. Mehmet Oz, a cardiothoracic surgeon, Soon-Shiong said. “What it speaks to is the level of competence. I think unless you have competence — the combination of competence and real world experience, about real world patients’ lives, and how it affects Americans lives, you really would end up with a bureaucratic mess.”
Also during the discussion with Morning Wire, Soon-Shiong dived deeper into his concerns about toxins and long-lasting chemicals in our foods and everyday products, and how rates of cancer in young people are alarmingly up.
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