Soon-Shiong folds two ex-Copley newspapers

When billionaire physician Patrick Soon-Shiong bought the L.A. Times, San Diego Union-Tribune, and a raft of other papers two years ago, many hoped that he was finally the Daddy Warbucks with enough free cash to fix the ailing newspapers

Now evidence is mounting that Soon-Shiong, who made his money in the drug industry, is radically downsizing his newspaper dreams in the face of COVID-19, abruptly shuttering the Glendale News-Press, Burbank Leader and La Canada Valley Sun, letting go of fourteen staffers.

"The Times has lost more than one-third of its advertising revenue and expects to lose more than half of its advertising revenue in the coming months."," said an April 14 staff memo first reported by the New York Times from Chris Argentieri, president of California Times, Soon-Shiong's newspaper holding company. The papers are furloughing 40 workers, the announcement said.

"As part of the austerity plan, pay for senior editorial and business managers at the Times and the Union-Tribune will be reduced by as much as 15 percent for three months, and 401(k) matches will be suspended," the Times added.

"The cuts do not apply to union employees who belong to the News Guild. Mr. Argentieri said company leaders would meet with union representatives to address "cost-saving initiatives."

Three days later came the word of the satellite newspaper closings.

The Glendale paper dates back more than a hundred years to 1905, when wealthy Illinois gas magnate and publisher Ira Copley, whose flagship paper was the Union-Tribune, bought the Glendale Daily Press and the Glendale Evening News and combined them. The paper had a series of owners since Helen Copley, the widow of Ira's son Jim, unloaded it in 1974. Times-Mirror, then-owner of the L.A.Times, purchased it in 1993.

The Burbank Leader, formerly known as the Burbank Daily Review, was also an early Copley acquisition that was sold in 1974, ending up with Times-Mirror. In the Copley days, the paper served as an important Southern California Republican base and launching pad for the political career of noted GOP operative Lyn Nofziger.

After graduating from San Jose State, Nofziger, who later became a well-known advisor to president Ronald Reagan, got his start as an intern at Copley's Glendale operation. From 1950 to 1956 Nofziger worked at one or the other of the two papers, serving as editor of the Daily Review from 1956 through 1958.

Nofziger then spent eight years as Washington, D.C. correspondent for Copley Newspapers before jumping into politics full-time at the behest of Jim Copley, famous for his behind-the-scenes efforts for Richard Nixon.

"The call came on a cold day in early January of 1966," wrote Nofziger in 1992's Nofziger: A Reagan Insider and Spokesman in His Own Words.

"The caller was Captain E. Robert Andersen, USN (ret.), the chief aide to James S. Copley, who owned the chain of newspapers for which I worked. "He came right to the point. 'Jim, would you like to take a leave of absence and come out to California and be Ronald Reagan's press secretary for his campaign for governor?'" Nofziger died in March 2006,. leaving his papers to Stanford's Hoover Institution.