UPDATE: LA Times Editor RESIGNS In Protest After Owner Refuses Kamala Harris Endorsement

Things are heating up and times are a’changing over at The Los Angeles Times — one of the biggest mainstream media newspapers in California.

We reported earlier this week that for the first time since 2008, the paper refused to endorse a Democrat candidate.

Now, it turns out that the editorial board over at the LA Times was planning to endorse Kamala Harris, but the decision was overruled and vetoed by the paper’s billionaire owner Patrick Soon-Shiong.

As a result, Editorials Editor boss Mariel Garza has just handed in her resignation.

Take a look at this recent development:

Breaking exclusive from @thewrap: the #LAtimes editorial page editor @marielgarzaLAT has resigned in the wake of the paper not endorsing a presidential candidate. https://t.co/xNt7G0nHFS

— Sharon Waxman (follow me on Threads @sharonwaxman (@sharonwaxman) October 23, 2024

NEWS

The editor of the Los Angeles Times editorial page has resigned after the owner blocked the editorial board from moving forward with an endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris.

“I am resigning because I want to make it clear that I am not okay with us being silent.… pic.twitter.com/bH3bJ4oKIi

— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) October 23, 2024

The New York Post reported:

The editorials editor for the Los Angeles Times stepped down Wednesday after the newspaper’s billionaire owner stopped the publication’s expected endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris.

Mariel Garza is leaving her post at the Times because she wants “to make it clear that I am not OK with us being silent” after biotech entrepreneur Patrick Soon-Shiong scrapped the paper’s endorsement for president.

“In dangerous times, honest people need to stand up,” Garza told the Columbia Journalism Review she said.

“This is how I’m standing up.”

Last week, Soon-Shiong told the newspaper’s editorial board through the outlet’s editor that the LA Times would not endorse Harris or former President Donald Trump, which was first reported by Semafor.

A draft of a proposed editorial giving Harris the nod was even written by Garza before it was called off, the Columbia Journalism Review reported.

She told the journalistic-centric outlet she didn’t think the endorsement would change voters’ minds because the LA Times is a “very liberal paper” and most of its readers are Harris supporters.

The Wrap added:

The Los Angeles Times was engulfed in turmoil two weeks ahead of the presidential election on Wednesday when Editorials Editor Mariel Garza resigned “immediately” after she said owner Patrick Soon-Shiong vetoed a decision by the newspaper to endorse Kamala Harris for president.

It was the first time in decades the paper had elected not to endorse a presidential candidate.

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The firestorm pulled in billionaire Soon-Shiong, billionaire Donald Trump supporter Elon Musk and the entire newsroom of the L.A. Times, still one of the country’s largest newspapers, And it brought the stakes of the November election into sharp relief.

Garza wrote in her resignation letter, obtained by TheWrap, that Soon-Shiong had “vetoed the editorial board’s plan to endorse Kamala Harris for president,” and that doing so “undermines the integrity of the editorial board and every single endorsement we make, down to school board races.”

She added: “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.”