The editorials editor of the Los Angeles Times on Wednesday confirmed she has resigned from her role over a decision by the newspaper’s owner to block the editorial board from making an endorsement in this year’s presidential contest.
“I am resigning because I want to make it clear that I am not okay with us being silent,” Mariel Garza, who led the editorial board, told the Columbia Journalism Review. “In dangerous times, honest people need to stand up. This is how I’m standing up.”
Garza said the board was prepared to endorse Vice President Kamala Harris, a decision that has been consistent with the newspaper’s history in endorsing a Democrat in every presidential election since 2008, including Joe Biden in 2020.
This year, however, as first reported by Semafor, owner Patrick Soon-Shiong made clear he did not want the paper to endorse a candidate in the presidential race, enlisting executive editor Terry Tang to deliver the news to the editorial board.
Trump’s team immediately seized on the news, sending an email to his supporters describing this as “the latest humiliating blow” to Harris’ White House bid.
In her resignation letter, which was published in full by the Columbia Journalism Review, Garza said she was disturbed that the newspaper’s management did not issue a statement after the news became public, allowing Trump to use the occasion to score a political point.
“It makes us look craven and hypocritical, maybe even a bit sexist and racist,” she wrote. “How could we spend eight years railing against Trump and the danger his leadership poses to the country and then fail to endorse the perfectly decent Democrat challenger — who we previously endorsed for the U.S. Senate?”
Soon-Shiong, who bought the newspaper in 2018, did not directly address why he pushed back against an endorsement.
In a statement on X, formerly Twitter, on Wednesday he said the editorial board was offered the chance to provide a detailed analysis of each candidate’s plans that would equip voters with “clear and non-partisan information side-by-side,” allowing them to make an informed decision on who to vote next month.
“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 wrote.
“Instead of adopting this path as suggested, the Editorial Board chose to remain silent and I accepted their decision. Please #vote,” he continued.
Garza told the Columbia Journalism Review she never received a request to conduct the analysis Soon-Shiong referred to, adding that “what he outlines in that tweet is not an endorsement, or even an editorial.”
The Los Angeles Times union also expressed alarm over Soon-Shiong’s decision.
“We are even more concerned that he is now unfairly assigning blame to Editorial Board members for his decision not to endorse,” the Los Angeles Times Guild Unit Council and Bargaining Committee said in a statement. “We are still pressing for answers from newsroom management on behalf of our members.”
The non-endorsement appears to have had some impact on the newspaper’s subscriptions, Semafor’s Max Tani reported. Out of the roughly 1,300 people whose subscriptions lapsed or were cancelled on Tuesday, 400 said editorial content factored into their decision to unsubscribe, Tani said.