Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, owner of the Los Angeles Times, announced on Wednesday his plan to introduce a “bias meter” in January to evaluate the publication’s news and opinion coverage, a move that quickly drew criticism from the staff, according to The New York Times.

During an appearance on CNN senior political commentator Scott Jennings’ podcast, Flyover Country, Soon-Shiong expressed concern that the L.A. Times had become “an echo chamber and not a trusted source.”

In response, the L.A. Times Guild issued a statement on Thursday, condemning the implication that its journalists are biased. The controversy escalated with the resignation of one of the paper’s columnists on the same day, the NYT reported.

“We speak truth to power, regardless of which party is in power. Recently, the newspaper’s owner has publicly suggested his staff harbors bias, without offering evidence or examples,” the guild wrote despite the fact that the LAT has increasingly leaned left for years.

“The statements came after the owner blocked a presidential endorsement by the newspaper’s editorial board, then unfairly blamed editorial board staffers for his decision. The statements of Dr. Soon-Shiong in the press and on social media reflect his own opinions and do not shape reporting by our member-journalists,” the statement continued.

Like other legacy newspapers, The LAT has consistently only backed Democratic candidates and politicians on its editorial page.

“Our members — and all Times staffers — abide by a strict set of ethics guidelines, which call for fairness, precision, transparency, vigilance against bias, and an earnest search to understand all sides of an issue,” it added. “Those longstanding principles will continue guiding our work. The Guild has secured strong ethics protections for our members, including the right to withhold one’s byline, and we will firmly guard against any effort to improperly or unfairly alter our reporting.”

Some Times staffers have already quit in protest. That includes opinion section senior legal affairs columnist Harry Litman also announced his resignation from the outlet Thursday as a “protest” against Soon-Shiong’s “conduct” in his “Talking Feds” Substack.

“Soon-Shiong has made several moves to force the paper, over the forceful objections of his staff, into a posture more sympathetic to [President-elect] Donald Trump,” Litman wrote, essentially proving the owner’s point that most of the staff leans far to the left.

The owner of the Los Angeles Times revealed on Scott Jennings’ podcast that he has been developing the “bias meter” using artificial intelligence technology originally created for his healthcare ventures, according to The New York Times.

“You have a bias meter so somebody could understand, as they read it, that the source of the article has some level of bias,” he said. “And what we need to do is not have what we call confirmation bias, and then that story automatically — the reader can press a button and get both sides of that exact same story based on that story, and then give comments.”

Semafor reported that the Times’ editorial board was set to endorse Kamala Harris this year until Soon-Shiong forbade any endorsement of either candidate.