Los Angeles Times editor resigns after newspaper owner blocked plans to endorse Harris

The Los Angeles Times’ editorials editor said Wednesday she had resigned from her post after the newspaper’s owner blocked a decision to endorse Kamala Harris in the presidential election.

The leader of the Los Angeles Times’ editorial board said Wednesday she has resigned from her post in protest after the newspaper’s owner blocked a decision to endorse Kamala Harris in the presidential election. “I am resigning because I want to make it clear that I am not okay with us being silent,” Mariel Garza told the Columbia Journalism Review in an interview. “In dangerous times, honest people need to stand up. This is how I’m standing up.” Garza’s resignation comes after Patrick Soon-Shiong, the billionaire doctor who purchased the publication in 2018 for $500 million, told the Times’ editorial board not to endorse in the presidential race, she said. The newspaper has endorsed a candidate in every presidential election since it backed Barack Obama in 2008. As California’s most widely-circulated newspaper, as well as one of the country’s largest, the Times’ decision not to endorse a presidential candidate raised questions about potential political interference. Garza told CJR the editorial board had intended to endorse Harris, who previously served as a US Senator from California and the state’s attorney general. “I didn’t think we were going to change our readers’ minds—our readers, for the most part, are Harris supporters,” Garza told CJR. “We’re a very liberal paper. I didn’t think we were going to change the outcome of the election in California.” A Los Angeles Times spokesperson did not respond to a CNN request for comment, but in a social media post Soon-Shiong wrote, “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.”