The editor of editorials at the Los Angeles Times has resigned in protest over the paper’s owner blocking an endorsement of Kamala Harris for president.
The editor, Mariel Garza, told Columbia Journalism Review’s Sewell Chan that the editorial board had planned to endorse Harris, but was blocked by owner Patrick Soon-Shiong.
Garza told Chan, “I am resigning because I want to make it clear that I am not OK with us being silent. In dangerous times, honest people need to stand up. This is how I’m standing up.”
The paper won’t endorse Harris or Donald Trump.
Garza told Chan, “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. But two things concern me: 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. We have made the case in editorial after editorial that he shouldn’t be re-elected.”
The Times has endorsed a Democrat for president in every election since Barack Obama ran for his first term in 2008. Soon-Shiong bought the paper in 2018. The Times has not given an official reason for why it won’t endorse a presidential candidate, even though it has given endorsements and for various state and local races and recommendations on propositions.
The Trump campaign, however, jumped on the Times not endorsing Harris, saying, “In Kamala’s own home state, the Los Angeles Times — the state’s largest newspaper — has declined to endorse the Harris-Walz ticket, despite endorsing the Democrat nominees in every election for decades. Even her fellow Californians know she’s not up for the job. The Times previously endorsed Kamala in her 2010 and 2014 races for California attorney general, as well as her 2016 race for U.S. Senate — but not this time.”
After news of Garza’s resignation broke, Soon-Shiong tweeted:
“So many comments about the @latimes Editorial Board not providing a Presidential endorsement this year. Let me clarify how this decision came about. 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. 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. Instead of adopting this path as suggested, the Editorial Board chose to remain silent and I accepted their decision. Please #vote.”
What Soon-Shiong said in his tweet is not how endorsements work at all. It even basically confirms Garza’s claim that Soon-Shiong blocked the editorial endorsing Harris. For Soon-Shiong to suggest in his tweet that it was the editorial board’s decision to remain silent is absurd.
In a text to The New York Times’ Katie Robertson, Garza said, “What he outlines in that tweet is not an endorsement, or even an editorial.”
In the end, it’s Soon-Shiong’s paper to do with what he pleases, but he comes out of this looking bad to both readers and, in particular, his own staff.
This is just the latest drama at the Times, which is how Garza became the editorial page editor in the first place.
Garza joined the Times’ editorial board in 2015, and became deputy editorial page editor in 2021.
In January of this year, Times executive editor Kevin Merida resigned from the paper, reportedly over clashes with Soon-Shiong. Less than two weeks later, two of the paper’s managing editors also resigned.
Eventually, editorial page editor Terry Tang replaced Merida as executive editor, and, in April, Garza became the editorials editor.
This piece originally appeared in The Poynter Report, our daily newsletter for everyone who cares about the media. Subscribe to The Poynter Report here.
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