The head of the Los Angeles Times editorial board quit her job, crying racism and sexism because the paper declined to endorse Kamala Harris for U.S. President.
Mariel Garza, the board’s editor, resigned on Wednesday, “to make it clear that” she is “not okay with us being silent.”
“In dangerous times, honest people need to stand up. This is how I’m standing up,” she told the Columbia Journalism Review.
This is the first time the paper will not endorse the Democratic nominee for President since 2008. Garza claims the board had intended to support Harris, and that she had even drafted their endorsement.
“It makes us look craven and hypocritical, maybe even a bit sexist and racist,” she whined in her resignation letter obtained by the Review.
Plans were allegedly scrapped on October 11, when the paper’s new owner, Patrick Soon-Shiong informed the board they would remain neutral, a decision that took Garza “aback,” according to the Review.
It’s also the “the latest blow” for Harris, according to her opponent, former President Donald Trump.
“In Kamala’s own home state, the Los Angeles Times—the state’s largest newspaper—has declined to endorse the Harris-Walz ticket, despite endorsing the Democrat nominees in every election for decades,” the Trump campaign stated in an email obtained by the Review.
“Even her fellow Californians know she’s not up for the job. The Times previously endorsed Kamala in her 2010 and 2014 races for California attorney general, as well as her 2016 race for US Senate—but not this time,” his campaign continued.
The Times, founded in 1881, had originally leaned Right. The paper endorsed every GOP nominee for President, but quit after receiving backlash for supporting Richard Nixon’s re-election campaign.
When Los Angeles turned fully Leftist, so did they.
Now that Shiong saved the Times from what the Review describes as the “doomed and recently bankrupt Tribune Company,” he aims to take things into a “non-partisan” direction.
In a post on X, Shiong justified the paper’s non-endorsement as an effort to “let the readers decide” who they want to lead their nation.
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…
But Garza, who had also led the paper’s endorsement of President Joe Biden in 2020, insists most of their readers “are Harris supporters.”
“We’re a very liberal paper. I didn’t think we were going to change the outcome of the election in California,” she told the Review.
Garza insists supporting Harris was a “logical step,” given all their previous rants “about how dangerous Trump is to democracy.”
