The eccentric billionaire owner of the Los Angeles Times may have a new partner as he leans into his hard-right turn: right-wing podcaster Candace Owens.
Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong’s team has had conversations about working with Owens, the podcaster condemned by the Anti-Defamation League and exiled from the Daily Wire in a public fight over her comments about Jewish people, for a new venture “LAT Next,” according to Status.
Should Soon-Shiong bring her on, Owens would join CNN commentator and Soon-Shiong favorite Scott Jennings on the project.
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A spokesperson for Owens declined to comment. The Times did not respond to an immediate request for comment.
Soon-Shiong has been vocal on social media about his desire to reconfigure the Times’ opinion pages to appeal to conservatives after nixing the paper’s endorsement of Kamala Harris last year, bringing on Jennings to join the Times' editorial board while also saying the paper will add an AI-powered “bias meter” to stories. (Jennings' role is not a staff position, and Soon-Shiong has not yet debuted the meter.)
But the choice to partner with Owens would signal Soon-Shiong’s willingness to associate his 144-year-old Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper with someone whose rhetoric on Jewish people precipitated her departure from a conservative media empire. According to Status, Times leadership has told staff the “LAT Next” project is separate from the paper—despite sharing a name.
Owens left the Daily Wire in March last year after repeatedly dabbling in antisemitic rhetoric, and the Anti-Defamation League has characterized her as someone who “has come to embrace and promote antisemitic tropes and anti-Israel rhetoric.” Shapiro has since said the Daily Wire made a choice about what views to publish on their platform.
It is unclear what other projects will be part of the venture, which comes as the Times has proposed voluntary buyouts to staffers who’ve been with the paper for at least two years.
Status reported that actors Rob Schneider and Cheryl Hines—whose husband, Health and Human Services nominee Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has received Soon-Shiong’s public support—met with with Soon-Shiong. Schneider has expressed his desire for a conservative response to The View.
