This is what happens when non-journalists own newspapers. Patrick Soon-Shiong may be a brilliant man in his field of medicine or in business but he has no idea how journalism works. He bought the Los Angeles Times in 2018, ostensibly to “save it” and what he has in mind will wreck not only it but set a bad pattern for the rest of the industry. Human journalists could be eliminated and the Ministry of Truth press releases, in essence, will be written by artificial intelligence. This is the stuff of nightmares.
Patrick Soon-Shiong, the erratic billionaire owner of the Los Angeles Times, is touting the single worst idea ever seriously contemplated by a newspaper executive and trust me that is saying something.
In October, Soon-Shiong blocked his editorial board from endorsing Kamala Harris, sparking a wave of resignations. That was the first indication of his sharp turn from reasonable, apparently liberal owner to MAGA revolutionary.
Now, he is having the tech team at his biotech company create a “bias meter” intended to expose the bias of the reporters and columnists who work for him.
And he is also having them create a button that generates two AI-written versions of “both sides” of the story — one of which would presumably be a Trump-friendly version of the news.
He announced these moves in a podcast interview with Scott Jennings, the right-wing provocateur who he just hired for his editorial board. His explanation was that he recently concluded that the Times is “an echo chamber, not a trusted source.”
His proposed solutions, however, suggest he has no idea how journalism actually works.
The bias meter is utterly ridiculous. The results would be specious and all it would accomplish at best would be to undermine his own staff.
But the button is the real killer. Leave aside that there aren’t two and only two sides to a lot of topics, how do you create “both sides” versions of a story based on reported facts? What’s the “other side” of a fact? Do you have the AI create a version in Trumpese? Full of lies?
It sounds like one of the two “button” versions would be true, the other would be false, and they’d both be written by AI instead of human. It’s perverse.
The incredible irony here is that Soon-Shiong insists that this is a way of rebuilding trust. It would do the opposite, while destroying the institution he bought in 2018, ostensibly to save it.
To be clear: AI cannot be trusted to do serious journalism. It can create the reasonable facsimile of a news story from structured data, like stock market values; it can summarize an article fairly effectively. But no reputable news organization would trust AI to write complicated stories on its own. Previous attempts to do so have ended in disaster.
But disaster in reporting does not seem to be the good doctor’s issue. He wants to avoid the wrath of Trump. His interest is not journalistic integrity so much as it is sailing under Big Brother’s radar.
I don’t know what happened to Soon-Shiong – whether it was a business decision, a falling-out, or a stroke. But he’s really gone around the bend.
Oliver Darcy, who writes the Status newsletter, had an extraordinary interview with Soon-Shiong last month, in which the billionaire asserted that it is an “opinion,” not a matter of fact, that Donald Trump lies at a higher rate than most other politicians. He accused Darcy of “bias” and said “This is really what I think is the matter with the country.”
The Newpaper Guild will do whatever it can to safeguard against the complete erosion of journalism. We are in an oligarchy. Let’s just see what our situation is and call it by its true name. And after Trump and his pals get done, who knows what will be left? I feel safe predicting that the institution of journalism, particularly TV *journalism* is going to go through a wide ranging transformation. How and what I cannot say, but something big is in the air. All the signs are there.
Truth needs to be the foremost battle of journalism not profit. Let’s see how this battle evolves. It will be key. Either the First Amendment means something or it means nothing.
“,,,in which the billionaire asserted that it is an “opinion,” not a matter of fact, that Donald Trump lies at a higher rate than most other politicians. He accused Darcy of “bias” and said “This is really what I think is the matter with the country.”
Gee, can’t wait to put that METER on this story!
That owner is a true creep. Too bad he has already refused to tell the truth about drumph for a long time now…
I wonder how his daughter (the one who allegedly pushed her father to kill the editorial board’s endorsement of Harris over the Biden Administration’s Gaza policy) will react to that “both sides” story when it comes to Palestinian issues? It’s not like AI will generate stories sympathetic to the Palestinians (especially since a pro-Palestine view tends to be on the “liberal” side of the “bias” front).