Here’s what happens when woke academia seeps into a major publication
January 24, 2024
The LA Times is going so woke that even the journalists are worried, which is something none of us thought would happen. That’s one way of reading this selection of stories. And it’s a fair and reasonable way, too.
The paper was bought by Patrick Soon-Shiong, who made his money in biotech. But he then put his daughter, Nika Soon-Shiong, in charge. Certainly, doing oversight on the paper’s output. Nika is a trust fund kid, a nepo baby, and also someone who has been infected ideologically by going to all the right colleges. She ended up as the Public Safety Commissioner of West Hollywood. “Her track record combines policy advocacy and research to reimagine the social contract. She is Founder and ED of the Fund for Guaranteed Income, “- “reimagine the social contract” is one of those codes for being progressive and woke. A more conservative attitude is to enforce the social contract. As to how she got that job, yes, appointed, not elected. Oh, and yes, like a good progressive, she insisted West Hollywood should defund the police.
After the riots following George Floyd’s death, she banned the word “looter” from coverage at the LA Times.
And, well, nepo baby, fashionably educated into all the wrong ideas.
What’s fun about this, in one way, is that this is worrying the staff at the LA Times. As in, there’s woke, and then there’s woke. It’s not sensible to get too far ahead of the readership in being ridiculous, perhaps. But while it’s not sensible, it is indeed possible.
OK, so the poorly educated can ruin a business, perhaps. But what’s fun here is that the father – who did, after all, make the billions in the first place – has realized this. We’re now seeing that the father, Patrick, is pulling back from his support of the paper.
Seems like a sensible enough idea, really – the editor did just quit:
“What went wrong? And why so quickly? Some sources point to friction with Soon-Shiong’s 30-year-old daughter, Nika Soon-Shiong, who in recent years has apparently appointed herself the paper’s unofficial ombudsman, publicly upbraiding journalists when their politics don’t fall in line with her own progressive thinking.”
Is it too progressive even for LA journalists? That’s some going. As a result, the LA Times is laying off 115 people. That’s 20% of the staff. To add to the 70 recently as well.
Journalists are, of course, complaining. What’s the point of making money if you don’t then spend it on journalists seems to be the complaint.
But let’s recap this story. Guy buys the newspaper for $500 million. It moves further progressive, woke and left. Losses increase to the point they can’t be supported anymore.
And folk say that “Go woke, go broke” ain’t true? That’s not quite how proper journalism would tell this story.