LA Times editor quits after Harris endorsement blocked

Mariel Garza claims that the outlet’s refusal to back the Democratic presidential candidate could appear “sexist and racist”

The head of editorials at the Los Angeles Times, Mariel Garza, has resigned after the outlet’s owner vetoed the editorial board’s plans to endorse Vice President Kamala Harris ahead of next month’s US presidential election. The journalist explained that she was “not okay” with the outlet choosing to remain silent in “dangerous times.”

Until now, the LA Times had backed a Democratic Party presidential candidate in every election since Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign. However, in its voting recommendations for the 2024 election published last week, the paper made no mention of the presidential candidates, writing only that this year’s vote is “the most consequential election in a generation.” 

At the same time, the paper endorsed more than two dozen mostly Democratic candidates for positions ranging from school boards to the US Senate.

The Semafor news outlet later reported that the LA Times editorial board had planned to endorse Harris, until Executive Editor Terry Tang intervened and ordered not to publish an endorsement. The decision was said to have come directly from the paper’s owner and executive chairman, Patrick Soon-Shiong.

In a post on X on Thursday, the billionaire explained this year’s decision to refrain from backing a presidential candidate by saying the editorial board had refused to provide a non-partisan analysis of both nominees.

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“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,” Soon-Shiong wrote. “Instead of adopting this path as suggested, the Editorial Board chose to remain silent and I accepted their decision,” he said.

In her resignation letter published by the Columbia Journalism Review, Garza argued that blocking the editorial board’s endorsement of Harris made the paper “look craven and hypocritical, maybe even a bit sexist and racist.”

“How could we spend eight years railing against [former President Donald] Trump and the danger his leadership poses to the country and then fail to endorse the perfectly decent Democrat challenger – who we previously endorsed for the U.S. Senate?” she wrote, adding that “staying silent isn’t just indifference, it is complicity.”

Following the LA Time’s omission of a presidential endorsement, the Trump campaign released a statement saying that even Harris’ “fellow Californians know she’s not up for the job.”