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.
“But two things concern me: This is a point in time where you speak your conscience no matter what,” she said.
“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.”
After news broke that the LA Times would forgo a presidential endorsement, the move was cheered by the Trump campaign.
“Even her fellow Californians know she’s not up for the job,” the campaign said.
While the paper has chosen a Democrat for president since 2008, it didn’t endorse Harris for California attorney general in 2010, instead opting for Republican Steve Cooley, CJR reported.
The LA Times union said in an email to union members on Wednesday 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.