Owner says editorial board refused to provide side-by-side Harris–Trump policy comparison; editor says she left after paper refused to endorse Harris.
The editor for the Los Angeles Times editorial section resigned on Wednesday after the newspaper’s owner requested the editorial board to present a side-by-side, factual, and nonpartisan analysis of both presidential candidates.
Editorials editor Mariel Garza told the Columbia Journalism Review’s Sewell Chan in an interview that she quit because the newspaper was remaining silent on the presidential race.
“I am resigning because I want to make it clear that I am not OK with us being silent,” Garza told Chan. “In dangerous times, honest people need to stand up. This is how I’m standing up.”
On X, Garza reposted the Columbia Journalism Review article along with a message from Chan, the paper’s executive director: “My friend Mariel Garza just resigned as editorials editor of @latimes after the newspaper’s owner blocked the editorial board’s plan to endorse Kamala Harris for president.”
My friend Mariel Garza just resigned as editorials editor of @latimes after the newspaper’s owner blocked the editorial board’s plan to endorse Kamala Harris for president. https://t.co/etvsPubDMV
— Sewell Chan (@sewellchan) October 23, 2024
However, L.A. Times owner Patrick Soon-Shiong clarified in a post on X that the editorial board was asked to provide a factual analysis of Vice President Kamala Harris’s and former President Donald Trump’s positive and negative policies and their effects during their time in office.
So many comments about the @latimes Editorial Board not providing a Presidential endorsement this year. Let me clarify how this decision came about.
— Dr. Pat Soon-Shiong (@DrPatSoonShiong) October 23, 2024
The Editorial Board was provided the opportunity to draft a factual analysis of all the POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE policies by EACH…
“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,” Soon-Shiong wrote in an X post on Wednesday.
“Instead of adopting this path as suggested, the Editorial Board chose to remain silent and I accepted their decision.”
Garza told the Columbia Journalism Review that the board had planned to endorse Harris and that she had drafted an outline of the editorial, which was rejected.
The L.A. Times in September published its list of electoral endorsements for the 2024 election. The list stopped short of including presidential candidates.
