Los Angeles Times editorial chief resigns after billionaire owner Patrick Soon-Shiong pulls Harris endorsement

The editorial editor for the Los Angeles Times resigned Wednesday after the newspaper’s billionaire owner withheld the expected endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris’ publication.

Mariel Garza is leaving her post at the Times because she wants to “make it clear that I’m not okay with us being silent” after biotech entrepreneur Patrick Soon-Shiong withdrew the paper’s endorsement for president.

“In dangerous times, honest people must stand up,” Garza told the Columbia Journalism Review.

“So I’m standing up.”

Last week, Soon-Shiong told the paper’s editorial board through the paper’s editor that the LA Times would not be endorsing Harris or former President Donald Trump, which was first reported by Semaphore.

A draft of a proposed editorial nodding to Harris was even written by Garza before it was scrapped, the Columbia Journalism Review reported.

She told the journalism-focused paper that she didn’t think the endorsement would change voters’ minds because the LA Times is a “very liberal newspaper” and most of its readers are Harris supporters.

“But two things bother me: This is a point in time when you speak your conscience no matter what,” she said.

“And an endorsement was the next logical step after a series of editorials we’ve written about how dangerous Trump is to democracy, about his unfitness to be president, about his threats to imprison his enemies.

“We have made the case in editorial after editorial for him not to be re-elected.”

After news broke that the LA Times would forgo a presidential endorsement, the move was cheered by the Trump campaign.

“Even her fellow Californians know she’s not up for the job,” the campaign said.

While the paper has chosen a Democrat for president since 2008, it did not endorse Harris for California attorney general in 2010, choosing Republican Steve Cooley instead, CJR reported.

The LA Times union said in an email to union members Wednesday that it sent a letter to Soon-Shiong, who has owned the paper since 2018, and editor Terry Tang asking for a reason why the approval was revoked, but did not. had received a response, Semaphore reported.

“We believe the company owes staff an explanation as to why this decision was made after years of general election approval,” the union reportedly wrote.