The editorial editor of the LA Times has stepped down after the billionaire owner reportedly blocked its editorial board from endorsing Kamala Harris for president.
Members of the newspaper’s editorial board were prepared to endorse Harris for commander in chief until a shock announcement from executive editor Terry Tang.
Tang informed staff earlier this month that they would not be endorsing a candidate for president, two people familiar with the conversations told Semafor.
Now, Mariel Garza – the paper’s editorials editor – says it was a red line for her and a sign that she needed to leave.
‘I am resigning because I want to make it clear that I am not okay with us being silent. In dangerous times, honest people need to stand up. This is how I’m standing up,’ she said.
The editorial editor of the LA Times Mariel Garza has stepped down after the billionaire owner reportedly blocked its editorial board from endorsing Kamala Harris for president
Members of the newspaper’s editorial board were prepared to endorse Harris for commander in chief until a shock announcement from executive editor Terry Tang
Garza told CJR she was under no illusions that the endorsement would make much difference.
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Billionaire owner 'blocks the LA Times from endorsing Kamala Harris'
‘I didn’t think we were going to change our readers’ minds—our readers, for the most part, are Harris supporters. We’re a very liberal paper. I didn’t think we were going to change the outcome of the election in California.
So why did the inability to tell people to vote for Harris bother her so much?
‘This is a point in time where you speak your conscience no matter what. And an endorsement was the logical next step after a series of editorials we’ve been writing about how dangerous Trump is to democracy, about his unfitness to be president, about his threats to jail his enemies,’ she said.
Garza claims the endorsement drafter was as much about how ‘he shouldn’t be re-elected’ as it was how Harris deserved to win.
Tang reportedly said the decision came straight from the paper’s owner, Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, a doctor who made his fortune in the healthcare industry.
Soon-Shiong broke his silence on the issue in a social media post on Wednesday night.
‘The Editorial Board was provided the opportunity to draft a factual analysis of all the POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE policies by EACH candidate during their tenures at the White House, and how these policies affected the nation,’ he said.
Tang reportedly said the decision came straight from the paper’s owner, Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, a doctor who made his fortune in the healthcare industry
Soon-Shiong broke his silence on the issue in a social media post on Wednesday night
‘In addition, the Board was asked to provide their understanding of the policies and plans enunciated by the candidates during this campaign and its potential effect on the nation in the next four years. In this way, with this clear and non-partisan information side-by-side, our readers could decide who would be worthy of being President for the next four years,’ Soon-Shiong continued.
He ultimately claims: ‘Instead of adopting this path as suggested, the Editorial Board chose to remain silent and I accepted their decision. Please #vote.’
Meanwhile, Garza calls the decision ‘perplexing to readers, and possibly suspicious.’
She allowed CJR’s readers to get a public look at her resignation letter to Tang, whom she said was ‘not to blame.’
The decision marks a major departure for Harris’ home state newspaper, which has exclusively endorsed Democratic presidential candidates since then-Senator Barack Obama ran in 2008.
Editors did not give a reason for the change when the paper published its statewide and national endorsements last week.
In fact, the only mention of the presidential race was in its first line that said it is ‘no exaggeration that this may be the most consequential decision in a generation.’
Editors also noted at the bottom of the page that ‘the editorial board endorses selectively, choosing the most consequential races in which to make recommendations.’
The decision marks a major departure for Harris’ home state newspaper
The Los Angeles Times has exclusively endorsed Democratic presidential candidates since then-Senator Barack Obama ran in 2008
A spokesperson for the paper told Semafor, ‘We do not comment on internal discussions or decisions about editorials or endorsements.’
But the LA Times has consistently issued presidential endorsements from the 1880s through 1972, when the paper endorsed Richard Nixon for re-election months after the Watergate hotel break in – a decision then-publisher Otis Chandler said he later came to regret.
It began publishing endorsements again in 2008 with Obama’s historic run for president.
Since then, the editorial board has exclusively endorsed Democratic candidates for the nation’s highest office.
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But in 2020, Soon-Shiong decided to again overrule the editorial board after it planned to endorse Sen. Elizabeth Warren in the Democratic primary.
It would later endorse Biden for president over Trump.
Soon-Shiong had bought out the historic newspaper two years earlier, after spending years working as a skilled surgeon.
He made his money by selling two drug companies: APP Pharmaceuticals to Fresnius Medical Care for $4.6billion in 2008, and Abraxis BioScience to Celgene for $2.8billion in 2010, according to Bloomberg.
Soon-Shiong then purchased the LA Times for $500million in 2018, promising new investments in the languishing newspaper, Politico reports.
But reporters have expressed their concerns over his daughter’s political activism, and the role that may play in their coverage.
Still, executives at the company have defended Soon-Shiong and his daughter.
‘As owners of the LA Times, the Soon-Shiongs have the prerogative to make decisions about all aspects of the organization,’ Hillary Manning, the vice president of communications told Politico in 2022.
‘One decision they made and have been vocal about since the time the acquisition was announced is that maintaining an independent newsroom is vitally important to them, to the LA Times itself and to the community as a whole.
‘We can appreciate that staff have differing opinions about how involved the Soon-Shiongs should be in day-to-day operations of the organization,’ she added at the time.