Two more top editors at the Los Angeles Times resigned after the newspaper’s billionaire owner stopped the publication’s expected endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris.
Editorial board members Robert Greene and Karin Klein quit Thursday, joining editorial page editor Mariel Garza, over the decision by biotech entrepreneur Patrick Soon-Shiong to stay silent about the upcoming election, according to reports.
Greene, a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer for the Times, wrote editorials about drought, criminal justice reform, policing, mental health and Los Angeles County government.
Klein wrote about education, environment, food and science.
They followed their boss Garza out the door after she left Wednesday because Soon-Shiong blocked the editorial board midway through its preparation to endorse Harris, Semafor first reported.
“I am resigning because I want to make it clear that I am not okay with us being silent,” Garza said in an interview with the Columbia Journalism Review. “In dangerous times, honest people need to stand up. This is how I’m standing up.”
Hugo Martin, a member of the unit council for the LA Times guild, told the Hollywood Reporter that “the latest resignations of talented journalists is a huge loss for the newsroom and the editorial board in particular” and that “we stand by our colleagues who have been wrongly and unfairly blamed for this decision not to endorse.”
In her interview with CJR, Garza said the paper’s editorial board had been ready to endorsee Harris for president and that she had already begun writing an outline of an editorial announcing the decision.
While the editorial page editor acknowledged that she didn’t believe the endorsement would sway the already liberal readership of the LA Times, she said the endorsement was important because “this is a point in time where you speak your conscience no matter what.”
She said that after a series of editorials about the dangers of re-electing former President Donald Trump, it was “logical” that the paper should put out its endorsement of his opponent.
The LA Times union said in an email to union members on Wednesday that it sent a letter to Soon-Shiong, who has owned the paper since 2018, and editor Terry Tang asking for a reason why the endorsement was called off, but hadn’t received a reply, Semafor reported.
“We believe the company owes the staff an explanation about why this decision was made after years of endorsements in general elections,” the union reportedly wrote.
After news of Garza’s departure broke, Soon-Shiong took to X to explain that he had offered the editorial board the chance to write “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.”
The owner had also asked the editorial board to present its vision for how policies outlined during the candidates’ campaigns might play out in the next four years if they were elected.
“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 wrote.
“Instead of adopting this path as suggested, the Editorial Board chose to remain silent and I accepted their decision. Please #vote,” Soon-Shiong added.
The paper’s apparent lack of editorial independence has turned off readers.
The paper saw a spike in readers canceling their subscriptions, with 1,793 subscribers citing “editorial content” as the reason for their cancellation, according to reports.
Leaders of the union that represents Times journalists posted a message on X Thursday begging readers not to unsubscribe from the paper.
“We know many loyal readers are angry, upset or confused, and some are canceling their subscriptions,” the union leaders wrote. “Before you hit the ‘cancel’ button: That subscription underwrites the salaries of hundreds of journalists in our newsroom.”
The paper’s own journalists were “deeply concerned” about Soon-Shiong’s decision and “pressing for answers,” even as they continued to do their jobs reporting the news, the union leaders wrote.
