Jan. 13, By William Turvill, Press Gazette

Next month marks four years since Dr Patrick Soon-Shiong agreed a $500m deal to buy his local newspaper, the Los Angeles Times. “It seems like 30 years,” says Soon-Shiong over a Zoom call from his home in LA.

He’s joking. But the pharmaceuticals billionaire, who made his fortune by developing cancer drugs, has overseen a dramatic period of change for one of America’s most storied news publishers.

The Soon-Shiong era started with the appointment of a new executive editor (Norman Pearlstine). An HQ move, from downtown LA to El Segundo, soon followed. Then came the launch of a TV production arm. The recruitment of 140 new journalists. A Covid-19 collapse in advertising revenues. A “summer of turmoil and scandals” and a “racial reckoning”.

In the years since Soon-Shiong and his wife, Michele, bought the California Times group (which includes the LA Times, the San Diego Union-Tribune and a handful of community titles) they have invested hundreds of millions of dollars into modernising the publisher.

“We may be close to $1bn by now,” says Soon-Shiong when I ask him how much he’s spent overall.

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