L.A. Times Editorial Chief Quits After Owner Blocks Harris Endorsement

The head of The Los Angeles Times’s editorial board resigned on Wednesday after the paper’s owner quashed a presidential endorsement for Vice President Kamala Harris.

In an interview with Columbia Journalism Review, Mariel Garza, who held the title editorials editor, said she had quit because “I want to make it clear that I am not OK with us being silent. In dangerous times, honest people need to stand up. This is how I’m standing up.”

Ms. Garza said that the editorial board had planned to endorse Ms. Harris, but that Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, the billionaire owner of The Los Angeles Times, decided this month that the newspaper would not make any endorsement for president. The paper did not explain to readers why it was not issuing an endorsement.

Ms. Garza submitted her resignation letter to the paper’s executive editor, Terry Tang, who oversees both the newsroom and the opinion department. Ms. Tang came to the paper after previously serving as an editor at The New York Times for 20 years.

Dr. Soon-Shiong, who bought The Los Angeles Times in 2018 for $500 million, pushed back on Ms. Garza’s version of events. In a social media post on Wednesday, he said that the editorial board had not followed through on a directive 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.”

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