Blogocentric Formulations

This Just In - July 21

The billionaire who bought the LA Times: "Hipsters will want paper soon"  
Written as part of "This Just In..."   for "Blog Harbor from The Talent Pond" 

There's so much in this article (and this situation with the LA Times newspaper) that fascinates me.

I had never even heard the name Patrick Soon-Shiong until the announcement that he had purchased the LA Times earlier this year. He has more money billionaires the likes of David Geffen, George Soros, Ralph Lauren, George Lucas, and Mark Cuban. Forbes even called him "the richest doctor in the history of the world" for a piece of reporting in 2014. So that's fascinating point #1.

Then the article talks about how he also purchased the San Diego Union-Tribune, Hoy (a Spanish-language publication), and a handful of small community papers and are combining them all under the larger branding of the "California Times." He's moving the LA Times out of its expensive downtown Los Angeles building and to a new state-of-the-art media center campus he's building closer to the beach in El Segundo, which will be technologically capable of meeting the current demands of media consumers (high-quality streaming, in-house broadcasting space, etc.). This guy isn't just buying a paper and saying, "Keep doing what you're doing." He's buying it and saying, "Let's move into a new era." Fascinating point #2.

Soon-Shiong also seems set on revitalizing old school quality journalism. He admits to hating the absence of what he calls "leisurely reading," where everyone is now trying to cram as much information and sensationalism into as small a space as possible, and resorting to tricks like clickbait headlines and dishonest reporting to attract readers. He said he's developed a "hundred-year plan" for making the company competitive and current. He hired an ex-Bloomberg, Time, and Wall Street Journal guy to be their editor in chief to assure people that it's a serious news organization and not just some billionaire's personal media/propaganda outlet. And he thinks the tactile sensation of reading actual ink on actual paper is going to make a comeback again, particularly with the younger generations who are already showing an inclination toward vintage products like records and second-hand clothing. Fascinating point #3.

Overall, I think this is an interesting new direction, and I'm excited to see it being led by someone who (at least publicly) seems to advocate for a return to quality journalism. After the debacle of the Tribune Company (Tronc) ownership that saw the LA Times hemorrhaging advertisers, readership, and staffers (the paper has lost approximately 900 employees since the late 1990s, most of them attributed to Tronc's profitability-over-public good approach), I think everyone in Los Angeles is hoping that Soon-Shiong will be the guy that turns the paper around again. He wants to turn the California Times into a powerhouse bastion of objective reporting on par with The New York Times and The Washington Post, and in this age of unprecedented levels of fake news, partisanship, and corporate agendas, I think we really do need another outlet that can provide quality journalism.