American politics is heating up after the editorials editor of The Los Angeles Times has decided to resign from the paper in the light of the paper's decision not to endorse a presidential candidate in the 2024 race.
"I am resigning because I want to make it clear that I am not okay with us being silent," Mariel Garza said in an interview with the Columbia Journalism Review. "In dangerous times, honest people need to stand up. This is how I’m standing up." In addition to being the paper’s editorials editor, Garza was also a member of its editorial board.
According to a report by Semafor published on 22 October, Times owner Patrick Soon-Shiong blocked the paper’s editorial board from endorsing a candidate in the race even though the board was preparing a recommendation. On 23 October, Garza appeared to confirm that account, telling CJR that Times executive editor Terry Tang conveyed Soon-Shiong’s wishes to Garza.
According to Garza, the board was ready to endorse Democratic candidate Kamala Harris for president and Garza had already begun writing an outline of an editorial to announce the decision. In the interview with CJR, Garza said that she didn’t believe this endorsement would sway Times readers’ voting decisions, given that the Times is a "very liberal paper."
However, the endorsement was important, she said, bcause "This is a point in time where you speak your conscience no matter what. And an endorsement was the logical next step after a series of editorials we’ve been writing about how dangerous Trump is to democracy, about his unfitness to be president, about his threats to jail his enemies."
In a message posted to X on 23 October, Soon-Shiong said that he had offered the editorial board the chance to write "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."
He had also asked the editorial board to present their vision for how policies outlined during the candidates’ campaigns might play out in the next four years if they were elected. "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," he wrote.
"Instead of adopting this path as suggested, the Editorial Board chose to remain silent and I accepted their decision. Please #vote," Soon-Shiong added.