Los Angeles Times Editorial Editor Resigns After Owner Didn’t Allow Presidential Endorsement
Garza admitted: “We’re a very liberal paper. I didn’t think we were going to change the outcome of the election in California.”
Mariel Garza resigned from her position as the Los Angeles Times editorial editor because the publication’s owner didn’t allow the board to make a presidential endorsement.
On October 11, owner Patrick Soon-Shiong told the board they couldn’t make an endorsement.
Garza told the Columbia Journalism Review:
“I am resigning because I want to make it clear that I am not okay with us being silent,” Garza told me in a phone conversation. “In dangerous times, honest people need to stand up. This is how I’m standing up.”
—
“I didn’t think we were going to change our readers’ minds—our readers, for the most part, are Harris supporters,” Garza told me. “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 reelected.”
—
“It was a logical next step,” Garza told me. “And it’s perplexing to readers, and possibly suspicious, that we didn’t endorse her this time.”
The LA Times didn’t endorse anyone from 1976 to 2004 after it endorsed Nixon in 1972. Watergate embarrassed the publication.
But the newspaper endorsed former President Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012, Hillary Clinton in 2016, and Joe Biden in 2020.
The LA Times endorsed Harris for California attorney general in 2014 and senator in 2016. The board endorsed Republican Steve Cooley for attorney general in 2010.
Soon-Shiong explained on X:
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.
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…
— Dr. Pat Soon-Shiong (@DrPatSoonShiong) October 23, 2024
Garza claimed she did not receive “a request for such an analysis.
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
Ms. Garza – –
Don’t let the door hit you on the ass on the way out.
No, let it hit her, maybe it’ll jolt her brain to get out of the stupid democracy bullschiff talking point. And if not, well hitting her in the ash won’t change her bullschiff, just another fascist wannabe elitist but it would make great video of a comeuppance.
I hope more of these entitled overpaid commie morons quit.
May they enjoy a long, long unemployment period.
She will get a DEI job somewhere and continue nagging people. The owner’s statement is pretty darn clear what he wanted. Present the facts and let readers, what few there are left, make up their own minds. For the left that is anathema
Man! What a bad decision! How many newspapers are still in business? He’ll have to learn to code.
It’s a she, not a he. But you had to actually read the article to know this, which you obviously didn’t do.
Figured toy would have a hard on for the groping story, rather than playing Karen on this one. But must commend you for a comment that does not contain the name of you know who.
Five bucks says you didn’t get past the first sentence, douchewhistle.
seen few people whose ability to process information is as bad as JR, maybe Biden.
You forgot to upvote yourself.
She perhaps received an offer from Mr. Goldberg at The Atlantic, where she can engage in the journalistic hatefest she longs for.
Nada. I’ve heard from an anonymous source who is familiar with her thinking that she is going to The Guardian.
So all she did by resigning is say the quiet part out loud that they are not an unbiased source of information.
And nothing of value was lost.
Perhaps this gives Dr. Soon-Shiong the opportunity to rebuild the newsroom a bit?
I read some comments from other newspaper people in an article who were very upset with Soon-Shiong’s proposed process (which I thought was a creative new idea). Their primary complaint was: It’s never been done like this before. You would think people working in an obviously decaying industry like daily print journalism would welcome ideas and opportunities to innovate, perhaps improving their chances for survival. If Soon-Shiong does want to rebuild (and it feels like he does), he’s going to need a a lot more change than a single editor.
Well, the rot won’t go away for a while.
Laurene Powell Jobs founded the Emerson Collective, a philanthropy and investment firm that is a majority owner of The Atlantic and has funded media companies like Gimlet, Ozy and Axios.
Hopefully even with all her billions she losed hundreds of millions on all those ventures.
“Objectivity? Allow readers to decide for themselves? Rubbish!”
The Left loves democracy, except for the part where popular input is sought and heeded.
How dare the owner require factual reporting!
Ms Garza quickly processed her boss’s requirement and realized that side by side comparisons of Trump’s and Harris’ prior stays at the top, and a similar comparison of their stated proposals moving forward would make it almost impossible to spin to the point that the LAT could endorse Harris.
Seeing herself trapped by facts, she fell on her sword.
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.”
SOOOOO
THE REALITY APPEARS THAT THE BOARD WOULD HAVE TO CRITICIZE HARRIS IF THEY WERE TO SHOW ANY FAIRPLAY
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.”
https://www.thewrap.com/la-times-owner-patrick-soon-shiong-denies-harris-veto/
Use RICO to permanently abolish the Democrat crime cabal
Seize the assets to the co-conspiring Marxist propagandists and replace leadership with …(Wait for it…)
JOURNALISTS
The problem is building enough prison space for crooked Dems. What are we going to do with all of them?
I believe the United States still owns the Rat Islands at the west end of the Aleutian chain. They are uninhabited and actively volcanic as far as I know. 😉
Subotai Bahadur
I hear Venzuela has a LOT of extra room now.
LA Times, release the Obama/Khalidi video!!!
Self admits would not change any minds but the editor sensing opportunity to move on from a sinking newspaper in a sinking town while claiming it’s a matter of principle is a move even Obama would admire
Libtard resigns over butthurt. Take a drink and roll again.