L.A. Times owner's decision not to endorse in presidential race sparks resignations, questions

A decision by the owner of the Los Angeles Times not to endorse in the 2024 presidential race — after the paper’s board proposed backing Kamala Harris — has created a tempest, prompting three members of The Times editorial board to resign and provoking thousands of readers to cancel their subscriptions.

Times owner Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong said that his decision not to offer readers a recommendation would be less divisive in a tumultuous election year.

“I have no regrets whatsoever. In fact, I think it was exactly the right decision,” he said in an interview with The Times on Friday afternoon. “The process was [to decide]: how do we actually best inform our readers? And there could be nobody better than us who try to sift the facts from fiction” while leaving it to readers to make their own final decision.

He said he feared picking one candidate would only exacerbate the already deep divisions in the country.

Members of the editorial board complained that the non-endorsement was out of step with recent precedent at the newspaper, which has picked a presidential candidate in every election since 2008, and with The Times’ previous editorial position, which has been ardently opposed to former President Trump.

Editorial page Editor Mariel Garza resigned Wednesday as a result of the decision. Editorial board members Robert Greene and Karin Klein left The Times the following day. Greene won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing in 2021 for his writing about criminal justice reform.

“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 U.S. Senate?” Garza wrote Wednesday in her letter of resignation to Times Executive Editor Terry Tang. “The non-endorsement undermines the integrity of the editorial board and every single endorsement we make, down to school board races.”

“I’m disappointed by the editorial [board] members resigning the way they did. But that’s their choice, right?” Soon-Shiong said in the interview.

The medical technology billionaire, who bought The Times in 2018, posted on the social media site X Wednesday that he believed he had offered his opinion writers a reasonable alternative to a traditional endorsement. He said they should “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,” he added. “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 Editorial Board chose to remain silent,” Soon-Shiong contended in his X post, “and I accepted their decision.”

The three journalists who resigned said they were not silent but, rather, disagreed with the owner’s proposal.

“The ‘opportunity’ to instead present a both-sides analysis would properly be done by the newsroom, not by an editorial board, whose purpose is to take a stand and defend it persuasively,” Greene said in a statement.

“I left in response to the refusal to take a stand,” Greene wrote, “and to the incorrect assertion that the editorial board had made a choice.”

For many news consumers, the very existence of editorial writers and editorial boards is a point of confusion.

They are generally veteran journalists who write editorials that express the position of their news outlet. Though written by one individual, the resulting essays are usually not signed because they indicate they express the consensus of the board.

At The Times, the eight-member editorial board is overseen by Tang, though Garza oversaw day-to-day operations. Soon-Shiong sits on the board, though he attends its thrice-weekly meetings only occasionally. It is understood that, as owner of The Times, he is entitled to change editorials or prevent them from being published.

Several individuals familiar with The Times’ board say that Soon-Shiong has intervened only on occasion, including in the 2020 presidential primary season, when he decided that The Times should not name a favorite.

The Times’ stable of in-house columnists and the paper’s editorial stances are generally liberal. The owner said on Friday that he has been pushing for some time to bring more conservative and centrist voices into the mix. He noted that Republican political strategist Scott Jennings has recently been writing more opinion pieces for The Times, which he said was a bonus for readers.

He said he hoped the conflict over the presidential endorsement would lead to “deep reflection” about the role of journalists.

“Is this just group-think, brainwashing or what, on either side?” he said. “I think we stand for more than that. We should be an organization that stands up and says the facts,” and also presents views across the political spectrum. He added: “I think that the country needs that desperately.”

The Chandler family owned The Times for more than a century, from its founding in 1881. During that long stretch, the family and Times leadership set a stolidly conservative agenda. The newspaper routinely endorsed Republicans for president and most other offices.

The Times backed former Vice President Richard Nixon, a Californian and a Republican, for president in 1972. But after the Watergate scandal brought President Nixon down in 1974, The Times editorial board agreed to no longer endorse in presidential races.

That policy held through eight elections, until 2008, when The Times urged readers to vote for Sen. Barack Obama. It endorsed Democrats in every presidential election since then.

The newspaper backed former Vice President Joe Biden over then-President Trump in the 2020 election. Soon-Shiong made no effort to change the editorial board’s decision. After the Democrat’s victory became clear, The Times owner posted a message on social media: “Congratulations President-Elect Biden and Vice-President Elect Harris. Historic day. Now time for our nation to heal. #PresidentElect #AmericaDecides.”

Four years earlier, Soon-Shiong congratulated Trump on his victory. “Incredible honor dining w/Pres-elect @realDonaldTrump last night,” he wrote on the site then known as Twitter. “He truly wants to advance #healthcare for all.”

A native of South Africa who grew up under apartheid, Soon-Shiong has spoken out passionately in the past about his belief in civil rights. But he has been less vocal publicly about his thoughts on elected officials.

He told Spectrum News this week that some might “look upon me or our family as ultra-progressive or not.” But he said he considered himself a political independent, adding in his interview with The Times that — despite speculation — his stand is not based on any singular issue or intended to favor either of the major party candidates.

Soon-Shiong said he has heard from both people who supported his decision as well as many who strongly opposed it.

“That’s the whole value of democracy. You can voice your opinion, but I hope they understand by not subscribing that it just adds to the demise of democracy and the fourth estate,” he told Spectrum.

Many other newspapers continue to endorse in the presidential race. The New York Times recently published an editorial warning about the dangers of a second term for Trump.

But the Washington Post decided, for the first time in 36 years, not to pick a candidate for the White House this year, prompting one board member to resign on Friday.

As with the Los Angeles Times decision, the Post’s non-endorsement was met with an immediate backlash from many readers and threats of subscription cancellations. Former
Post Editor Martin Baron criticized the Washington paper’s move, saying Friday that “history will mark a disturbing chapter of spinelessness at an institution famed for courage.” The publisher of the Post said the paper would allow readers to make up their own minds.

The Trump campaign quickly tried to use word of the L.A. Times’ non-endorsement to its advantage. “Even her fellow Californians know she’s not up for the job,” the Republican’s campaign said.

That position flew in the face of statements from Garza and others about their intention to back Harris.

A little more than two months after Trump took office in 2017, the editorial board published a series of scathing essays under the headline: “Our dishonest president.” One editorial described Trump’s initial actions as “a train wreck” that “will rip families apart, foul rivers and pollute the air, intensify the calamitous effects of climate change and profoundly weaken the system of American public education for all.”

Several thousand customers, including actor Mark Hamill, dropped their subscriptions this week in protest over the non-endorsement.

The owner’s intervention did not sit well with other Times employees, including many of those who work for the news pages. The morale of many of the workers already had been at a low ebb, given the layoff at the start of the year of 115 journalists, more than 20% of the newsroom, following a period of growth and hiring since 2017.

The Times — like virtually every other American newspaper — has been struggling to find a viable financial model, given the massive downsizing of print advertising. Soon-Shiong’s willingness to underwrite tens of millions of dollars of losses per year has made cuts at The Times, though painful, less extreme than at the country’s biggest newspaper chains.

The union representing Times journalists, which has been without a contract and pay raises for more than two years, demanded that management give a fuller explanation of the failure to endorse.

“Those of us who work in the newsroom, rather than on the Editorial Board, do not have a position on whether a presidential endorsement should have been made,” said a letter to Soon-Shiong signed by nearly 200 journalists. “However, we all expect The Times to be transparent with readers.”

Long-time columnist Robin Abcarian said in an interview that it was “patently absurd” for the newspaper that had written dozens of news stories and opinion pieces about the dangers of Trump to belatedly pull back from endorsing Harris.

“Refusing to endorse for president at a moment when democracy is imperiled is a betrayal of what our editorial pages do: tell the truth, say what we believe and why,” Abcarian said.

Abcarian sympathized with readers lashing out at the paper’s ownership. But she also called on subscribers to keep supporting the hundreds of journalists who played no role in the decision.

“The Los Angeles Times is so much more than a single endorsement,” she said. The staff “still manages to turn out extraordinary coverage.”

In an X post, leaders of the union representing Times journalists agreed. “Before you hit the cancel button,” they wrote, “that subscription underwrites the salaries of hundreds of journalists in our newsroom. Our member-journalists work every day to keep readers informed during these tumultuous times. A healthy democracy is an informed democracy.”