LA Times senior editor QUITS after billionaire owner ‘blocks’ paper from endorsing Kamala Harris as owner speaks out

The editor-in-chief of the LA Times has stepped down after the billionaire owner reportedly blocked his editorial board from approval Kamala Harris for chairman.

Members of the paper’s editorial staff were prepared to support Harris as commander-in-chief until a shocking announcement from editor-in-chief Terry Tang.

Tang told staff earlier this month that they would not support a candidate for president, according to two people familiar with the conversations said Semafor.

Now Mariel Garza, the paper’s editor-in-chief, says this was a red line for her and a sign she had to leave.

‘I am resigning because I want to make it clear that I do not agree with our silence. In dangerous times, honest people must stand up. This is how I get up,” she said.

Garza said CJR she was under no illusions that the approval would make much of a difference.

“I didn’t think we’d change our readers’ minds; our readers are, for the most part, Harris supporters. We are a very liberal newspaper. I didn’t think we were going to change the outcome of the California election.

So why did the inability to tell people to vote for Harris bother her so much?

‘This is a moment when you speak your conscience no matter what. And an endorsement was the logical next step after a series of editorials we wrote about how dangerous Trump is to democracy, about his unfitness to be president, about his threats to jail his enemies,” she said.

Garza claims the author’s endorsement was as much about how “he shouldn’t be re-elected” as it was about how Harris deserved to win.

Tang reportedly said the decision came directly from the newspaper’s owner, Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, a doctor who made his fortune in healthcare.

Soon-Shiong broke his silence on the matter in a social media post on Wednesday evening.

“The editors had the opportunity to prepare a factual analysis of all the POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE policies of EVERY candidate during their tenure in the White House, and how these policies affected the nation,” he said.

“Additionally, the Council was asked to provide insight into the policies and plans put forward by the candidates during this campaign and their potential impact on the nation over the next four years. In this way, with this clear and unbiased information side by side, our readers could decide who would be worthy of being president for the next four years,” Soon-Shiong continued.

He ultimately claims, “Rather than pursue this path as suggested, the editors chose to remain silent and I accepted their decision. #pleasevote.”

Meanwhile, Garza calls the decision “baffling to readers and potentially suspicious.”

She publicly informed CJR readers of her resignation letter to Tang, whom she said was “not at fault.”

The decision marks an important step forward for Harris’ state-owned newspaper, which has exclusively supported Democratic presidential candidates since then-Senator Barack Obama in 2008.

The editors did not give the newspaper a reason for the change released its statements of support on a statewide and national level last week.

In fact, the only mention of the presidential race was in the first line, which stated that it is “no exaggeration that this could be the most consequential decision in a generation.”

The editors also noted at the bottom of the page that “the editors selectively endorse and choose the most consistent races to make recommendations.”

A spokesperson for the newspaper told Semafor: “We do not comment on internal discussions or decisions regarding editorials or statements of support.”

But the LA Times consistently issued presidential endorsements from the 1880s through 1972, when the paper endorsed Richard Nixon for reelection months after the Watergate hotel burglary — a decision that then-publisher Otis Chandler said he later regretted it.

It started publishing endorsements again in 2008, when Obama ran for president.

Since then, the editorial board has exclusively endorsed Democratic candidates for the nation’s highest office.

But in 2020, Soon-Shiong decided to ditch the editorial again after it planned to endorse Senator Elizabeth Warren in the Democratic primaries.

It would later support Biden for president over Trump.

Soon-Shiong had purchased the historic newspaper two years earlier, after years of working as a skilled surgeon.

He made his money by selling two pharmaceutical companies: APP Pharmaceuticals to Fresnius Medical Care for $4.6 billion in 2008, and Abraxis BioScience to Celgene for $2.8 billion in 2010. according to Bloomberg.

Soon-Shiong then bought the LA Times in 2018 for $500 million and promised new investment in the languishing newspaper. Political reports.

But reporters have raised concerns about his daughter’s political activism and the role it could play in their reporting.

Still, company executives have defended Soon-Shiong and his daughter.

“As owners of the LA Times, the Soon-Shiongs have the privilege of making decisions on all aspects of the organization,” Hillary Manning, the vice president of communications, told Politico in 2022.

“One decision they have made and have been vocal about since announcing the acquisition is that maintaining an independent newsroom is critical to them, to the LA Times itself and to the community at large.

“We imagine that staff may have differing opinions on how involved the Soon-Shiongs should be in the day-to-day operations of the organization,” she added at the time.