LA Times employees resign as owner rejects Harris endorsement

(AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes, File)

Three key members of the editorial board at Los Angeles Times resigned this week in protest of the owner’s refusal to allow the paper to endorse the Democratic vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris as the presidential candidate in 2024.

Billionaire biotech owner Patrick Soon-Shiongwhich bought the paper in 2018, blocked the board’s planned approval, breaking the paper’s run of having endorsed a candidate in every presidential election since 2008.

The veto sparked immediate backlash from the board.

Publisher of editorials Mariel Garza was the first to walk out in protest on Wednesday, denouncing Soon-Shiong’s position.

In response, Soon-Shiong defended his decision as an effort to keep the paper “less divisive” in an already polarized climate. He said that instead of an outright endorsement, he suggested the board detail policy differences between Harris and the former Republican presidential nominee. Donald Trump to let the readers decide.

So many comments about @latimes The editorial board is not offering a presidential endorsement this year. Let me clarify how he made this decision.

The editorial board had the opportunity to develop a factual analysis of all POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE policies by each…

— Dr. Pat Soon-Shiong (@DrPatSoonShiong) October 23, 2024

until thursday two more board members joined Pulitzer Prize-winning editor Garza Robert Greene and education and environment editor Karin Klein.

In a resignation letter, Greene wrote: “I recognize that it is the owner’s decision to make. But it hurt especially because one of the candidates, Donald Trump, has shown such hostility to the principles that are central to journalism – respect for the truth and reverence for democracy.”

Klein took to Facebook to offer his interpretation: “I respect the owner’s right to intervene in the editorials; this is an ethical place to do so. What excites me is that a decision against an editorial right now is actually a decision to do an editorial—one without words, one invisible to create, that unfairly implies that (Harris) has serious flaws that put her somehow on one level. with Donald Trump.”

In further defiance of Soon-Shiong, more than 1,700 readers canceled their subscriptions to the paper, including the Star Wars actor Mark Hamill.

I canceled our subscription to the LA Times because I want to make it clear that I do not agree with them being silent. In dangerous times, honest people must stand up. This is the only way to show that I’m getting up.- mh#Thank youMarielGarza

— Mark Hamill (@MarkHamill) October 24, 2024

In response, in an interview on Thursday with Spectrum News 1 SoCalSoon-Shiong criticized those who canceled the addition “to the demise, frankly, of democracy and the fourth state.”

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