Los Angeles Times Owner Plans to Launch Tech-Driven “Bias Meter” On Articles Next Year
Patrick Soon-Shiong says that his team is building a product where “the reader can press a button and get both sides” of a story.
BY ERIK HAYDEN
Weeks after scrapping a presidential endorsement of Kamala Harris that had been prepped by his editorial board, the owner of The Los Angeles Times says his product team is working on a new tech-driven “bias meter” to add to articles on the paper’s website as soon as next year.
The idea, as Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong presented it, sounds like it’ll be a module that presents multiple viewpoints on a particular news item as well as allow some version of comments to be integrated. And it marks the latest signal from the billionaire that he plans to reshape the Times as the second Trump administration gears up and after the exits of multiple edit board members following the endorsement flap.
“Imagine if you now take — whether it be news or opinion — and you have a bias meter, whether news or opinion, more like the opinion, or the voices, you have a bias meter so somebody could understand as a reader that the source of the article has some level of bias,” Soon-Shiong elaborated in a radio segment hosted by incoming Timeseditorial board member Scott Jennings.