Last week, the Wall Street Journal reported that billionaire investor, Patrick Soon-Shong,

was exploring a sale of the Los Angeles Times.

The paper has had a rough few years, and the report stirred up speculation about media

ownership and what the point of having a billionaire in charge really was.

Joining me discuss is Rico's Peter Kafka, hey, Peter.

Hey, Teddy.

So, tell me what happened with the LA Times and this story last week.

The very shortest version is the Wall Street Journal reported that, as you said,

the man who bought the Times three years ago is now trying to sell it,

and then had some qualifiers saying maybe selling a portion of it and maybe he's trying to get

new investors, offered some different scenarios, but said he's shopping it, basically.

And Patrick Soon-Shong denied this, both in a tweet and in a longer statement,

which his own paper, the LA Times, published in full, and said, no, absolutely not.

This is not happening.

So, there's a gap.

Someone's not telling the truth.

So, someone's wrong here.

Journal has a pretty good track record here, so I assume there is some degree or truth

through what they're reporting.

And I think the reason the story shook both people at the Times and people who care about

media a bit is that Patrick Soon-Shong was hailed as a savior for the Times in 2018.

When he bought it, the thought was he might become sort of the Jeff Bezos,

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