LA Times owner Patrick Soon-Shiong is a man without a plan

I said what I had to say about Los Angeles Times owner Patrick Soon-Shiong two weeks ago, when he pushed out executive editor Kevin Merida. I don’t really have anything to add now that the Times has laid off 115 employees. Except this: You’d have to be naive to think that Soon-Shiong should simply use his billions to subsidize what he says are annual losses in the $30 million to $40 million range. The problem is that he doesn’t have a plan.

“We are not in turmoil. We have a real plan,” Soon-Shiong reportedly said Tuesday. The record says that he’s wrong on both counts.

The hope was that Soon-Shiong would take losses for a few years while figuring out a strategy that would return the Times to profitability and growth. Instead, he’s just flailing around.

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