WashPost: LA Times to Be Sold to Billionaire Physician

The owner of the Los Angeles Times is expected to announce it's selling the newspaper, The Washington Post reported.

According to the Post, the buyer is Patrick Soon-Shiong, a Los Angeles-area physician and a major shareholder of the paper's current parent company, Chicago-based Tronc.

Soon-Shiong — the billionaire founder and chief executive of NantHealth — will also buy the Times' sister newspaper, the San Diego Union-Tribune, the Post reported.

The Post noted the past few months have been chaotic at the Times, with rapid turnover in the paper's top ranks and a major clash between management and journalists over a proposal to have more non-staffers contributing more news content.

Ever since Tronc's forerunner company, Tribune Co., acquired the Times in 2000, the newspaper and its parent company have engaged in a feud about the paper's management and direction — and the company has made numerous cutbacks.

Its news staff has been pared to about 400 from more than 1,300 at its peak in the late 1990s, the Post noted.

Times' employees are now represented by the NewsGuild-Communications Workers of America, based in Washington, D.C. and represents 25,000 reporters, editors and other employees at media outlets throughout the country.

The newspaper is the leader in digital subscriptions among regional newspapers, topping 100,000 in September 2017.

Since 1942, the paper has won 44 Pulitzer prizes.

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