There was a report in The Intersect, a Substack from Joe Bel Bruno “where Wall Street and Hollywood collide,” on Sunday that Jay Penske is in “early talks” to buy the Los Angeles Times. We’ve been down this road before — rumors of a Times sale, denials by the owner and then, true to the owner’s word, no sale. We are committed to grow this most important newspaper on the West Coast and the journalistic need to speak truth to power.”And there’s this, too: The Los Angeles Times communications department put out a tweet that said, “This is not true. Soon-Shiong met with Penske to discuss the Los Angeles Times (not a deal per se) more than five years ago — before the Soon-Shiongs acquired the Los Angeles Times — and they have not met since. Joshua Benton wrote about all this for Nieman Lab: “The Los Angeles Times is definitely either for sale or not for sale.”As Benton notes, you can look at the sale of the San Diego paper two ways.

Source: Los Angeles Times July 18, 2023 13:23 UTC