The owner of the Los Angeles Times plans to introduce a “bias meter” for articles

Weeks after he withdrew a presidential endorsement of Kamala Harris prepared by his editorial team, the owner of The Los Angeles Times says its product team is working on a new technology-driven “bias meter” that will be added to articles on the paper’s website as early as next year.

The idea, like Dr. As Patrick Soon-Shiong introduced it, it sounds like a module that presents multiple viewpoints on a given message and allows the integration of some versions of comments. And it’s the billionaire’s latest signal that he wants to reshape it Just as the second Trump administration prepares and following the departure of several board members following the approval flap.

“Imagine if you take now – be it 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 that someone as a reader can use the source “The article has a certain degree of bias,” Soon-Shiong explained in a radio segment hosted by Incoming Just Editorial staff member Scott Jennings.

(The revelation of this news to Jennings is no coincidence. In November, Soon-Shiong used his said, “I’m looking for people like Scott Jennings” to staff his newspaper.)

The Los Angeles Times Mogul added: “What we need to do is not have what we call ‘confirmation bias,’ and then the reader can automatically press a button and get both sides of the same story based on that story.” And then make comments . Well, I’ll give you some breaking news here, but this is what we’re currently building behind the scenes. And I hope to release that by January.”

Jennings replied: “So we’re talking about a fusion of content created by journalists and the technology you develop that will give readers a richer, more comprehensive view of a given story at any given time.”

“Right,” Soon-Shiong said, adding, “Comments are as important as sometimes the story, because you get a sense of what people are thinking, and like you said, you can have a conversation, a discourse, a respectful disagreement lead.” ”

The idea of ​​the “bias meter” has been circulating online as a product idea that readers have theoretically been interested in for some time. Founded in 2018, NewsGuard offers a browser extension that provides a “full nutrition label” of a news website and its political leanings, as well as the owner of that website. Captain America Star Chris Evans launched a website in 2020 called “A Starting Point,” which provides explanations of news topics in the format “Here are three ways Democrats think about it” and “three things Republicans think about it.” And short-lived news startup The Messenger (which Soon-Shiong tried to buy before it closed earlier this year) had signed a deal with an artificial intelligence company, Seekr, to somehow help root out bias in its own reporting.

Soon-Shiong also addressed why he stepped up Harris support, saying he believes in it Just The opinion section was “an echo chamber and not a trustworthy source.”

“When my next level of management in the newsroom told me that they had prepared a recommendation without meeting with any of the candidates, I was a little outraged and felt that everything they were going to say was really based on facts should,” said Soon-Shiong.

He added: “I knew I was going to get in trouble, I knew it was going to be painful, I knew people don’t like change, and I knew I had to even appeal to the newsroom by saying, ‘ See, is that you?’ Are you sure your news is news, or is your news really an opinion about your news?’”

Speaking of alternative perspectives: Los Angeles Times Editorial member Karin Klien, who resigned after the recommendation was scrapped, described how she saw the newspaper owner’s move to make the late decision.

“If Soon-Shiong had decided early last spring that he no longer wanted to support presidential elections, that would have been fair, neutral and legitimate,” Klien wrote in a guest column for The Hollywood Reporter on October 27th. “A strange decision, not to influence the most important election of my life, but to influence his decision.”

Klien added: “But when the decision is made at the 11th hour, when the candidates are decided, the polls are close and almost anything can sway the race one way or the other, Soon-Shiong’s anti-editorial stance is actually one De facto decision.” to write an editorial – a wordless one, a seemingly invisible one, which unfairly implies serious errors on Harris’s part that put her on a par with Donald Trump. Soon-Shiong, whether he is aware of it or not, practices the opposite of the neutrality he claims to strive for.”