Los Angeles Times owner will sell paper, ending a long-troubled relationship

The Chicago-based owner of the Los Angeles Times is expected to announce it is selling the newspaper in a surprise move that probably spells the end of its long-troubled relationship with Southern California’s leading news outlet. The buyer is Patrick Soon-Shiong, a Los Angeles-area physician and a major shareholder of the paper’s current parent company, Tronc. Soon-Shiong is the billionaire founder and chief executive of NantHealth, based in Culver City (CA). He will also buy its sister newspaper, the San Diego Union-Tribune. The past few months have been particularly chaotic at the Times, with rapid turnover in the paper’s top ranks and a major clash between management and journalists over a proposal to have more non-staffers contributing more news content. Ever since Tronc’s forerunner company, Tribune Co., acquired the Times in 2000, the newspaper and its parent company have engaged in a cross-country feud about the paper’s management and direction. As newspapers have declined in the digital age, the company has ordered round after round of cutbacks, prompting complaints that Tribune was decimating one of the nation’s most accomplished journalistic institutions.