Los Angeles Times editorials editor Mariel Garza resigned from the paper Wednesday, slamming the paper’s owner after the publication declined to make a presidential endorsement this cycle.
“I am resigning because I want to make it clear that I am not okay with us being silent,” Garza told Columbia Journalism Review (CJR) on Wednesday. “In dangerous times, honest people need to stand up. This is how I’m standing up.”
Semafor reported Tuesday that the L.A. Times would not be endorsing any presidential candidate this year despite doing so since backing former President Obama in 2008. The article said the decision came from the paper’s owner, Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, who took over in 2018.
Garza called the idea of not endorsing a candidate “perplexing” and potentially “suspicious” for readers.
“I didn’t think we were going to change our readers’ minds—our readers, for the most part, are Harris supporters,” she said. “We’re a very liberal paper. I didn’t think we were going to change the outcome of the election in California.”
She added, “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.”
In her letter of resignation to editor Terry Tang, Garza wrote she was “struggling” with the “implications” of the paper staying silent on the presidential race.
“It makes us look craven and hypocritical, maybe even a bit sexist and racist. How could we spend eight years railing against 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 US Senate?” she wrote.
She continued, “The non-endorsement undermines the integrity of the editorial board and every single endorsement we make, down to school board races. 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.”
Despite Garza and others blaming Soon-Shiong for the paper’s non-endorsement decision, the owner wrote on X that the decision came from the Editorial Board.
“So many comments about the @latimes Editorial Board not providing a Presidential endorsement this year. Let me clarify how this decision came about,” Soon-Shiong wrote.
He continued, “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.”
The Los Angeles Times Guild Unit Council and Bargaining Committee posted a statement in response to Soon-Shiong:
Endorsements continue to divide the nation and turn one entity against the other solely on personal preferences. Politicians can endorse whomever they desire, that is their realm. My feeling is that if not in politics leave your personal opinion to yourself. That way you do not turn off admires. Let the candidates speak for themselves and the media be unbiased. We way too much division in the country to continue our survival as a nation.
WAA! WAA! I didn’t get my way so I quit. How childish. Take your ball and go home. It is amazing how immature liberals are.
Good riddance don’t let the door hit you in the ass as you leave. Your beyond liberal obviously supporting a candidate that can’t give the American people any real ideas of what she would do as President different than her boss. She is a word salad expert in talking and not giving any real answers to the questions she is being asked. She has had ample opportunities to explain what she indeed would do as president, but she won’t give a real answer. Example, she was asked point blank will you continue to build the wall at the border? She obfuscated the question, answering I want to be clear, (really?) my administration will go back to congress and pass the border bill that Trump refused to support. Totally not answering a simple question yes or no. That’s what she has been doing since she has put into the race by Democrats who did an illegal coup replacing Biden and supplementing Harris over her boss. She isn’t qualified to actually take the office of the Presidency since as Vice President she has been a ghost and the fact, she was appointed to the border CZAR which clearly, she failed miserably.
Mariel Garza: don’t let the door hit you in the rear on the way out.
It is normal for a business owner to determine various policies and practices of the business he or she owns. To do otherwise would be counter productive. The owner is the only one with “skin in the game”. And he or she knows that politics has divided our country in half— endorsing one candidate alienates 5 pecent of the market. As an employee you have the freedom to seek another job.
The liberals, msm, and Demos have been LYING about Trump for 9+ years, not anywhere near truthful. Too bad, but we would like to see more eyes opened than wide shut.It takes a special kind of stupid to support/endorse someone dumber than Biden
Seriously? — “… I am not okay with us being silent …” — The LAT is better off without an editor who has failed to learn a gerund requires a possessive pronoun. Maybe this person focused on a different type of pronoun usage in J-school.