Red Pilled and Reviled

In an apparent effort to clear the air, a meeting was called. And so, just before ringing in the new year, members of the opinion unit joined a Zoom call with Soon-Shiong to talk things over. The internal meeting, which has gone unreported until now, did not go well. In fact, I'm told that it went quite poorly. Soon-Shiong did most of the talking, according to people familiar with the matter, and he repeatedly disparaged the work of the opinion department, which he views these days as too liberal. The people familiar with the meeting described it to me as "heated" and "very unpleasant." It droned on for more than an hour, I'm told. People ultimately left in low spirits, having just been chewed out by their boss and the steward of their prized publication.

Fast forward a little more than a month and the state of affairs inside the newspaper has managed to get worse, both in the opinion and news divisions. The newspaper is struggling financially and, earlier this week, management offered voluntary buyouts to staffers. It's not clear how deeply brass is looking to reduce headcount, but given that the offer was extended to those who have only worked at the newspaper for a couple of years, the situation isn't looking great.

Meanwhile, Soon-Shiong continues to involve himself in the opinion section. While he has not yet rolled out his anticipated “bias meter,” he continues to exert influence over its editorial direction. On Thursday, I learned that three of the left-leaning opinion columnists — Robin Abcarian, Jackie Calmes, and LZ Granderson — were recently directed to reduce their output. They all usually write at a cadence of about two times a week. But they have now been restricted to a single piece a week, I'm told. A spokesperson for the Times did not respond to a request for comment. But the widely held suspicion amongst staffers is that, by reducing their output, it will help move the opinion pages toward the right, something that Soon-Shiong has openly said he would like to do. It is hard to imagine, after all, that if Soon-Shiong’s new BFF Scott Jennings were filing pieces every day, they would be rejected.

Indeed, Soon-Shiong is quite open these days about his leap to the right. On Wednesday morning, Bari Weiss' The Free Press published a 2,500-word piece about Soon-Shiong having taken "the red pill." The story, written by Peter Savodnik, featured an on-the-record interview with Soon-Shiong, in which he effectively sought to atone with the conservative movement for his supposed sins as a one-time champion of social justice causes. Savodnik wrote that Soon-Shiong, who he characterized as previously being "one of the enablers and enactors of woke," now "sounded remorseful."

The story infuriated staffers inside the Times — not because Soon-Shiong was yet again spouting off about his MAGA-curious political views, but because in his interview with Savodnik, he opted to trash the newspaper. Soon-Shiong said "dogma" and "false assumptions" had saturated the outlet over the last few years. He accused staffers of disguising their personal opinions as fact. And he outright said he did not believe he had a critical mass of reporters on his staff who believe there should be a wall between news and opinion. "The answer is, 'I don't think I do,'" Soon-Shiong matter of factly said, before apparently laughing.

The journalists inside the Times were livid. They had just spent weeks pouring their souls into wildfire coverage and it had not apparently even occurred to Soon-Shiong to send them a single note of gratitude for their hard work. Instead, he had gone to an outside publication and ridiculed their work with a slew of absurd attacks. The company's Slack channel quickly ignited with commentary blasting Soon-Shiong for his behavior, according to messages I obtained.

"Wouldn't it be great if he talked to his newsroom even once instead of trashing them in countless other outlets?" one staffer rhetorically asked. "His trashing of the newsroom at a moment when you all have done the most spectacular work is really something," chimed in another. "The whole interview is kind of breathtaking," added someone else. "Please, for the love of God and Otis Chandler, someone with real power push back on this," pleaded a fourth staffer. "Reading that article was so, so painful," a fifth staffer wrote. "The comments by Dr. Soon-Shiong speak of a newsroom that is unrecognizable to me as a reporter," a sixth added. "Reading that article was stunning," wrote one more. "These comments, on top of the buyout notice, are extremely disheartening," added another.

On and on it went. The stream of comments must have finally struck a chord. On Thursday afternoon, Soon-Shiong sent a brief, three-paragraph note to the newsroom. "I am so proud of your work," Soon-Shiong told them. He then called for the newsroom to hold the powerful accountable. While many staffers have been critical themselves of Mayor Karen Bass' fire response (and obviously it is perfectly alright for an owner to call for accountability journalism), it struck some journalists at the newspaper as Soon-Shiong wanting his staff to beat up on a prominent Democrat while simultaneously making it clear he wants Trump and his allies to be treated delicately.

In any event, in my conversations with staffers at the Times on Thursday, it was made abundantly clear to me that morale has plummeted even further than the record lows it had hit at the end of 2024. It's as if every time morale sinks to a new low at the newspaper, Soon-Shiong takes out a drill and finds a way to push it even deeper into the ground. As one staffer candidly told me, "People are in disbelief. Patrick’s public comments ... were bad enough, but the buyout offer — especially the timing, given how tirelessly the newsroom has been working since the wildfires began — felt tone deaf at best, and spiteful at worst."

The Information Wars

Trump's CBS Tirade: Donald Trump took aim at CBS News again Thursday, going so far as to demand the network be banned from broadcasting. His outburst was triggered by CBS releasing the “60 Minutes” transcript of its interview with Kamala Harris, which revealed no wrongdoing by the network. Despite the facts, Trump falsely claimed the interview was “Election-changing ‘stuff,’” accusing CBS of election interference and fraud at a level “never seen before.” He even called for "60 Minutes" to be shut down and the show’s hosts fired. But, as Variety’s Brian Steinberg pointed out, CBS doesn’t even have a broadcast license to revoke. There is also this pesky thing called the First Amendment that guarantees the network the right to free speech, which the right claims to be in favor of.

MAGA Gone Wild: Trump also on Thursday floated a baseless — but unfortunately popular — right-wing conspiracy theory that posited USAID was funding media outlets. That's simply not true. Government agencies have paid outlets such as POLITICO, Axios, and The NYT for subscriptions to their services. That’s far different than providing them grants, which is how it has been framed to audiences in MAGA Media. Trump surely knows that. But he portrayed the situation as one of the "biggest" scandals in media history and the White House directed the Government Services Administration on Thursday to end “every single media contract” expensed by the agency, Axios’ Zachary Basu and Marc Caputo reported. Marisa Kabas also reported that USDA sent an email yesterday to employees directing them to stop credit card payments to media outlets.

In a statement, The NYT said it “heavily discounted” rates for government subscriptions, that they are less than 1/1000th of its annual revenue, and that “no federal grants” have been given to the newspaper. POLITICO published a note to readers saying that most of its “Pro” customers are from the public sector, but that government agencies that subscribe “do so through standard public procurement processes — just like any other tool they buy to work smarter and be more efficient.” Axios declined to comment.

COMBAT ZONE

• Jake Tapper didn't mince words as he sharply criticized Shari Redstone and Paramount for engaging in talks with Donald Trump to settle the absurd "60 Minutes" lawsuit. Tapper warned that if a settlement deal is struck, it would amount to “hoisting a white flag of surrender.” [CNN]

  • In the segment, Tapper also commented about how "corporations are leaning on news divisions to supplicate themselves to whomever is in power because of their bottom line and the implied threat from the government." 👀

• Meta hired right-wing clown Henry Rodgers. Rodgers, a longtime Daily Caller employee, will work on public policy issues at the Mark Zuckerberg-controlled company, which has been desperate as of late to appeal to MAGA. [The Wrap]

  • Speaking of which, Zuckerberg was at the White House on Thursday. Right-wing extremist Tucker Carlson was also spotted entering the White House.

• A recurring problem on the right: A DOGE staffer who was given access to the Treasury Department’s sensitive systems resigned after The WSJ asked the White House about his connection to a racist social media account. [WSJ]

• A caller asked Sean Hannity on his radio show to stand up for the "rank and file" FBI agents that the MAGA propagandist has for years claimed to support. Hannity said there "are going to have to be hard questions for rank and file members in terms of their priority and whether or not they challenged some of the higher ups." [MMFA]

• Jim Acosta returned fire at Greg Gutfeld after the Fox News host went after him on his show: “You’re as bad as Hannity,” Acosta quipped. [Mediaite]

The Fourth Estate

OFF THE WIRE

• ✂️ Cuts, cuts, cuts: HuffPost carried out the final wave of the layoffs announced last month. I’m told 10 staffers were cut in the workforce reduction. Additionally, about 20 people took a buyout offer earlier in the week.

• Andrea Mitchell on Friday will exit the MSNBC anchor chair. She will continue serving as NBC News’ chief Washington correspondent.

• WIRED has established itself "as the digital thorn in Elon Musk's side," Sean Burch reported. [The Wrap]

• CNN said a second season of Jake Tapper's "United States of Scandal" will premiere March 9. [Variety]

MEDIA MOVES

• "CNN This Morning Weekend" co-anchor Amara Walker announced she will exit the network. [Deadline]

• Bloomberg hired CNN’s Kate Sullivan as a White House correspondent. [TBN]

• The WaPo tapped Sara Sorcher as a senior editor on the general assignment desk. [WaPo]

• TV news agent Ali Spiesman exited CAA, which hosted two goodbye parties for her in recent days. Spiesman told me she will travel the world with her fiancé without set plans. After the total life reset, she will figure out what’s next.

Tech Tabs

• Banks led by Morgan Stanley sold $5.5 billion of debt they lent to Elon Musk for the billionaire's $44 billion Twitter acquisition, Shankar Ramakrishnan reported, citing a source. [Reuters]

• OpenAI is looking at building data centers in 16 states as part of its Stargate project. [CNBC]

• Bluesky's Instagram alternative, Flash, launched in beta mode. [TechCrunch]

• Snap's Evan Spiegel has co-founded a foundation aimed at helping wildfire recovery efforts. [LAT]

The Biz

• Amazon’s advertising revenue surged to $17.3 billion, powered in part by strong performances from “Thursday Night Football.” [THR]

• Netflix is “looking to license preexisting videos from YouTube creators,” Natalie Jarvey reported. [The Ankler]

• Spotify and Warner Music Group signed a new multi-year deal. [Deadline]

• The Lionsgate-Starz split will not happen until April, at the earliest, boss Jon Feltheimer said. [Deadline]

• AMC hiked the price of Subs A-List. [Variety]

• UTA boss Jay Sures said his home was vandalized during a pro-Palestinian student protest. [LAT]

The Closing Number

• A judge handed CBS a legal victory and temporarily blocked Sony from taking over distribution for "Wheel of Fortune" and "Jeopardy!" [THR]

• 🚨 Lil Wayne announced "Tha Carter VI" will drop on June 6. [Variety]

• The "Fantastic Four" teaser trailer amassed more than 202 million views in 24 hours, a record for a non-sequel Marvel film. [Deadline]