LA Times Flips Anti-RFK Jr. Op-Ed Into Pro-Kennedy Propaganda

Failures

from the destroying-trust-in-media-one-billionaire-at-a-time dept

Patrick Soon-Shiong, owner of the LA Times, has been promising to restore trust in media over the last few months. Instead, he has launched an escalating campaign of editorial interference that accomplishes exactly the opposite. First, he blocked the paper from publishing an endorsement of Kamala Harris. Then, he demanded to personally approve all op-ed headlines to avoid offending Elon Musk. He even proposed using AI to artificially balance opinion pieces with “the other side.”

But his latest intervention goes far beyond mere meddling.

The LA Times was set to publish Eric Reinhart’s scathing critique of both US healthcare and RFK Jr’s nomination to head Health & Human Services, noting how much damage he would do to a system that was already broken. Instead, just before publication, the piece was substantially altered and given a new headline that completely inverted its message to appear supportive of Kennedy.

Immediately after it was published, Soon-Shiong took to ExTwitter to promote the op-ed and call for Kennedy’s nomination to be approved by the Senate, saying “Trump’s healthcare disruption could pay off — if he pushes real reform. @LATimes, @RobertKennedyJr. He is our best chance of doing so.”

The brazen misrepresentation of his work prompted Reinhart to publicly denounce the Times and vow never to work with them again:

As Reinhart points out, the Times didn’t just soften his criticism – they systematically stripped out his core arguments against RFK Jr. and slapped on a misleading headline that completely reversed his intended message.

The extent of the LA Times’ manipulation becomes clear when comparing the published version to Reinhart’s originally submitted op-ed (titled “RFK Jr.s Wrecking Ball Won’t Fix Public Health“). While the published version presents a sanitized critique of healthcare, the original piece drew sharp parallels between RFK Jr. and Luigi Mangione’s killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson — a comparison the Times completely excised.

But perhaps the most damning edit — made just before Soon-Shiong would falsely present the piece as pro-Kennedy — was the removal of this devastating critique at the closing of the piece:

Although RFK Jr. and Luigi Mangione are both responses to the same underlying problem of US healthcare corruption, there is a major difference between them: one operated outside the law to kill one person in defense of millions, whereas the other––via his egomaniacal disregard for scientific evidence––seeks to use law itself to inflict preventable death on those millions.

Let that sink in: Reinhart explicitly warned that RFK Jr’s appointment could lead to the “preventable death” of “millions” — and the LA Times not only stripped this warning from the piece, it then used the neutered version to advocate for Kennedy’s appointment.

This isn’t editorial oversight — it’s literary gaslighting.

As Reinhart notes on Bluesky:

My proposed title and my opening and closing lines do not leave my stance on RFK Jr remotely ambiguous. He’s dangerously ignorant, egomaniacal, and effectively a mass murderer in waiting. He has no business being anywhere near HHS.

The supreme irony here is that while billionaire media property owners like Soon-Shiong, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg constantly bemoan the public’s “distrust in media,” their own heavy-handed meddling has become perhaps the leading driver of that distrust. They’re not just putting their thumbs on the scale anymore – they’re actively rewriting reality to match their preferred narrative.

While blocking publication of an endorsement or op-ed is problematic enough from a trust standpoint, actively distorting an author’s work to argue the opposite of its intended meaning represents a complete betrayal of journalistic principles. It’s not just editorial interference — it’s straight-up journalistic malpractice.

This incident leaves the LA Times in an impossible position. How can readers trust anything published under its banner when its owner has demonstrated such willingness to corrupt the paper’s editorial integrity for his own political agenda? The real victims here aren’t just Reinhart and his mangled op-ed, but the paper’s journalists whose credibility has been irreparably damaged by the owner’s actions.

If Soon-Shiong truly wants to understand why trust in media is collapsing, he need look no further than his own mirror. And no magical AI is going to fix that.

Filed Under: donald trump, eric reinhart, patrick soon-shiong, propaganda, rfk jr., trust in media, us healthcare
Companies: la times