Merida Talks Media

In his first interview since resigning his post as top editor of the Los Angeles Times, Merida spoke about disagreements he had with owner Patrick Soon-Shiong.

Author

Oliver Darcy
October 08, 2024

Kevin Merida onstage at TheGrill conference. (The Wrap)

Kevin Merida may no longer lead a major news organization, but the veteran journalist still has a lot of insight to offer about the state of the media industry.

I spoke with Merida on Tuesday at the annual TheGrill conference in Los Angeles, hosted by The Wrap. In his first interview since astonishing the media world and resigning his post as top editor of the Los Angeles Times, Merida spoke about the disagreements he had with owner Patrick Soon-Shiong. We also discussed the press’ coverage of the 2024 election, billionaires in media, the controversy roiling CBS News, and The Los Angeles Local News Initiative, which he serves on the board of.

Below is our Q&A, lightly edited for clarity and length.

► On the Los Angeles Local News Initiative: "Local news is the most important news. It's essential to a democracy. ... Part of the initiative is we are trying to grow the media ecosystem here in Los Angeles. ... There are a lot of places here that have community newspapers. And this is an attempt to harness the power of community newspapers. ... This initiative is trying to pull a lot of these local news organizations together into a bigger operation."

► On hyperlocal news: "I don't think that for something to succeed you need to have massive scale. Not every place is big. And there are a lot of places with no news organizations at all — just social media."

► On why he resigned from The LAT: "It was time. I came there to try to transform the place. It's very hard. I thought the last round of layoffs — that was not something I thought was going to be beneficial to what we were trying to do to grow. ... And there were some disagreements that the owner and I had."

► On whether it was appropriate for LAT owner Patrick Soon-Shiong to wade into editorial waters: "Anybody who owns a newspaper, owns a news organization, can do anything they want, right? It's theirs. They own it. But it's not my experience…”

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