By T.J. Simers
Dear Patrick Soon-Shiong,
You seem so clueless, but I can’t believe someone who is trying to cure cancer would be like that.
You own the LA Times and aren’t you embarrassed? Has it really been a life-long goal to own a dull product that interests so few?
And now this. Are you aware how foolishly your people at the newspaper are spending your money?
Your soccer writer was in Uganda this week writing about an anti-homosexual law that had nothing to do with soccer. Therefore, it might have a chance to be read..
“Uganda may impose some of the world’s strictest anti-gay measures: ‘You’re fearing for your life,’ “”said a small headline atop the story that I saw.
He’s also going to write about a catcher who throws bricks, and blocks tires with hopes to make it in the Major Leagues. I know this because the Peninsula Press wrote a long profile about your soccer writer, Kevin Baxter, and informed everyone what he had planned for his LA Times’ audience in the coming days.
“He is seeking out the riveting story of a promising baseball talent who has been sharing his skills on YouTube,” wrote Alex Dakers for the Peninsula publication.
Riveting? We’ll see, Patrick, won’t we for all that you are spending.
I don’t have any sources inside your newspaper anymore, I know, hard to believe, but someone did say you were also paying to send a photographer, Wally Skalij, to Uganda. I know Wally. One of my lawyers demonstrated how he didn’t tell the truth during my trial to sue the Times. Remember, I wasn’t suing you.
But I would check his expenses when he turns them in.
. You’ve got a sports editor at the Times, Iliano Romero, spending like she’s on a shopping spree, which is funny because she won’t send a writer on the road with the Angels. The team has two of the biggest stars in the game in Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani. Can’t wait to read the AP wire story on Ohtani when he pitches a perfect game.
PATRICK, people will hold the Times in higher regard if you give them something no one else can deliver. That might mean hiring more seasoned professionals to write,; just don’t let anyone go to Uganda and you will be rich again.
Your sports editor also had someone covering the NCAA Gymnastics Championships in Ft. Worth. Meals, hotel room, airline tickets. In the business this is known as throwing money away.
The newspaper covers horse racing now with a guy living in Florida.
I don’t think she was sending a writer on the road with the Kings and Ducks, but I don’t read those stories enough to know if that’s true.
Why gymnastics? You might want to ask your sports editor. The Times now measures the number of hits or readers who look at the stories they publish. USC, and the Lakers top the list, and shockingly gymnastics is high up, too.
Hard to explain unless gymnastics does well with the perv crowd who like to watch young girls perform in leotards. That might explain why the newspaper ran four pictures with the gymnastics coverage.
Or, maybe it’s a circulation push, the perv market wide open for the most part Kudos then to your sports editor.
PATRICK, this is happening on your watch. We talked last week, well I talked, about the sports columnist you have been paying the last six months who has written once so far. You sure are generous.
But I think you need to start paying some more attention to your newspaper and the folks who still read it. Don’t go down in history as a guy who had no clue.
With regard, tj
