AILSA CHANG, HOST:
The Los Angeles Times has been mired in controversy the last few months. In October, the paper's owner, billionaire Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, blocked the paper from endorsing then-presidential candidate Kamala Harris, causing some staffers to quit in protest. Then, earlier this month, he announced a bias meter that he says will accompany LA Times coverage. So what does all of this mean for the LA Times and other news organizations? For more, we're joined now by NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik. Hi, David.
DAVID FOLKENFLIK, BYLINE: Ailsa.
CHANG: OK, so just help us understand what's going on here. Like, how long has this shake-up at the Times been going on, from what you can tell?
FOLKENFLIK: Well, look. You know, Dr. Soon-Shiong is a billionaire medical innovator and inventor, and he was seen as something of a savior nearly seven years ago, when he stepped into the breach to buy the LA Times. And he's subsidized a heck of a lot of losses since, and they've had some real job cuts in recent times. There's been a lot of concern and anxiety inside the paper. His decision to cancel the endorsement and, in subsequent weeks, to really speak out affirmingly about President-elect Trump and some of the folks coming into the medical and health side of the administration has been pronounced. He's recruited from CNN a conservative commentator, Scott Jennings, and, you know, now he's embarked on this latest innovation, it appears.
CHANG: Right - the bias meter - I want to play some tape for you of Soon-Shiong talking about this so-called bias meter.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PATRICK SOON-SHIONG: You have a bias meter, so somebody could understand, as they read it, that the source of the article has some level of bias and get both sides of that exact same story.
CHANG: I mean, in all of your time covering the media, have you ever heard of anything like this tool he's proposing?
FOLKENFLIK: No. And I got to say, it's particularly unusual to be done from inside an institution rather than outside critics trying to apply that.
CHANG: Yeah.
FOLKENFLIK: I've got to say, in talking to people inside the Times, there seems to be a 0% chance that Soon-Shiong will, or even attempt to, apply this, ultimately, to news coverage. It seems like a legal disaster, almost inviting suits, if he were to do that. But also, even to do it on the opinion page, maybe it would be a way you could convey to an audience, hey, we've got parody, but not surprising people. These are opinion pieces, after all.
CHANG: Yeah. And what do you think a tool like that, if it were implemented, truly would mean for news media as a whole?
FOLKENFLIK: I think it's a signal of the anxiety about the news media being perceived as being all-powerful and, at the same time, losing a lot of its influence over the audience. And it's all about the fear of the moment that we're in about Trump. To be fair to Soon-Shiong, he says he just wants to win back the audience - the trust of his audience.
CHANG: That is NPR's David Folkenflik. Thank you so much, David.
FOLKENFLIK: You bet. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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