Patrick Soon-Shiong, the owner of Los Angeles Times, says his team is working on a tech-driven “bias meter” for articles so that readers “can press a button and get both sides” of the story.
The announcement comes after Soon-Shiong did not allow the Times to endorse Vice President Kamala Harris ahead of the 2024 presidential election.
“I began to sort of see that it was an echo chamber and not a trusted source,” Soon-Shiong said of his newspaper during an interview with Los Angeles Times editorial board member Scott Jennings on his Flyover Country podcast.
Soon-Shiong went on to explain that when his editorial board “shared with me that they had prepackaged an endorsement without having met with any of the candidates, I was a little bit outraged.”
“There has to be some level of trusted source,” Soon-Shiong continued. “Look, I’m a physician. When I see a patient, what I tell the patient should be based on some trusted information — we should have that in the newspaper when you’re talking about news.”
“Everybody has a right to an opinion. That’s fair. But it really shouldn’t be an echo chamber of an opinion,” the Los Angeles Times owner added. “We need to actually create some level of balance when it comes to opinion with columnists, and then we need to actually let the reader know this is opinion.”
“So, don’t get mad if it’s too left, and don’t get mad if it’s too right, just consider what are the facts underlying this opinion,” Soon-Shiong said, adding, “Nobody’s really done that, and I think this could be the downfall of what now people call the mainstream media.”
The Los Angeles Times owner went on to say that as soon as January, he plans to implement a “bias meter” that allows readers to see what side of the story they are looking at.
“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,” Soon-Shiong explained.
“Now, I’m giving you some little breaking news here, but this is what we’re currently building behind the scenes. And I’m hoping that by January we launch this,” he added.
Jennings chimed in, saying, “So we’re talking about a fusion of content created by journalists, and technology that you’re developing that will give the readers a more well-rounded or complete view of any given story at any given time?”
“Correct,” Soon-Shiong replied, adding, “You look at X now, and I think what X has — these comment buttons, and the comments are as important as sometimes the story, because you get a feel of what people are thinking and, as you said, you can have a conversation, a discourse, a respectful disagreement.”
Alana Mastrangelo is a reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow her on Facebook and X at @ARmastrangelo, and on Instagram.
