Short answers, pulled from the story.
The Los Angeles Times was first published on the 4th of December 1881, under the name the Los Angeles Daily Times, under the direction of Nathan Cole Jr. and Thomas Gardiner. Harrison Gray Otis became editor in July 1882 and purchased a quarter stake in the paper for six thousand dollars.
Union leaders James and Joseph McNamara were charged with the bombing of the Los Angeles Times headquarters on the 1st of October 1910, which killed 21 people. The American Federation of Labor hired attorney Clarence Darrow to defend them; the brothers ultimately pleaded guilty.
Biotech investor Patrick Soon-Shiong has owned the Los Angeles Times since the 16th of June 2018, having purchased it through his Nant Capital fund for $500 million plus the assumption of $90 million in pension liabilities. On the 21st of July 2025, he announced plans to take the paper public within a year.
As of 2024, the Los Angeles Times has won 41 Pulitzer Prizes, including four in editorial cartooning. In 2004 alone, the paper won five prizes, the third-highest single-year total by any paper in Pulitzer history.
Print circulation peaked at 1,225,189 daily copies in April 1990. By October 2010 it had fallen to 600,449, and by 2024 it stood at 79,000. As of 2022, the paper had 500,000 online subscribers, the fifth-largest total among U.S. newspapers.
On the 19th of January 2018, Times news department employees voted 248-44 in a National Labor Relations Board election to be represented by the NewsGuild-CWA. Staff ratified their first union contract on the 16th of October 2019, ending more than a century of anti-union tradition at the paper.