LA Times Owner Denies Vetoing Presidential Endorsement: ‘The Editorial Board Chose to Stay Silent’
Los Angeles Times owner Patrick Soon-Shiong denied vetoing the editorial board’s endorsement of Kamala Harris for president, saying that the board “chose to remain silent and I accepted their decision.”
Editorial page editor Mariel Garza resigned on Wednesday over the newspaper’s lack of an endorsement, saying, “The non-endorsement undermines the integrity of the editorial board and every single endorsement we make.” She said in her resignation letter obtained by TheWrap that Soon-Shiong vetoed the editorial board’s decision to endorse Harris, to which the paper’s owner responded directly Wednesday evening.
“So many comments about the L.A. Times editorial board not providing a presidential endorsement this year. Let me clarify how this decision came about,” he wrote on X, viewable in full below. “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,” Soon-Shiong continued. “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.”
He concluded, “Instead of adopting this path as suggested, the editorial board chose to remain silent and I accepted their decision. Please vote.”
In turn, Garza responded to TheWrap exclusively, saying, “We pitched an endorsement and were not allowed to write one.”
Meanwhile, Elon Musk responded to Soon-Shiong’s Twitter statement, simply, “Makes sense.”
Earlier on Wednesday, Garza submitted her resignation to executive editor Terry Tang, writing in part: “The non-endorsement undermines the integrity of the editorial board and every single endorsement we make, down to school board races. People will justifiably wonder if each endorsement was a decision made by a group of journalists after extensive research and discussion, or through decree by the owner.
“In these dangerous times, staying silent isn’t just indifference, it is complicity,” she continued. “I’m standing up by stepping down from the editorial board. Please accept this as my formal resignation, effective immediately.”
In addition to the public outcry over the decision, internal Slack conversations viewed by TheWrap echoed the sentiment that the paper had “abandoned that responsibility” of endorsing a candidate, as one L.A. Times newsroom journalist put it.
Sharon Waxman contributed to this reporting.
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