With less than two weeks until Election Day, The Los Angeles Times declined to publish an endorsement for U.S. president in a move the Trump-Vance campaign called the “latest blow” for Vice President Kamala Harris.
As the campaign pointed out, the state’s largest newspaper previously endorsed her for California attorney general in 2014 and in 2016 for U.S. Senate. Why not now? “Even her fellow Californians know she’s not up for the job,” the campaign claimed.
But according to the Times’ editorials editor, Mariel Garza, the paper planned to endorse Harris but was stopped by the owner of the Times, Patrick Soon-Shiong, setting off tension within the ranks.
He explained on X how he arrived at the decision.
"So many comments about the @latimes Editorial Board not providing a Presidential endorsement this year. Let me clarify how this decision came about," he wrote. "The Editorial Board was provided the opportunity 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. 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. 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. Instead of adopting this path as suggested, the Editorial Board chose to remain silent and I accepted their decision. Please #vote.”
Garza claims, however, that she never received a request for an analysis and told the Columbia Journalism Review that even if she did, “what he outlines in that tweet is not an endorsement, or even an editorial.”
Why does it even matter in deep blue California?
Garza said she knew an endorsement wouldn't change any of their readers' minds since they're mostly all Harris supporters anyway.
“But two things concern me: This is a point in time where you speak your conscience no matter what," she told CJR. "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. We have made the case in editorial after editorial that he shouldn’t be reelected.”
“It was a logical next step,” Garza added. “And it’s perplexing to readers, and possibly suspicious, that we didn’t endorse her this time.”
It further bothered Garza and others at the paper that the Trump-Vance campaign jumped on the non-endorsement, with CJR's Sewell Chan explaining that "Numerous staffers have told me about how pained, even embarrassed, they felt after Trump used the Times to score a political point."
These factors pushed Garza to submit her resignation. Her letter is below, via CJR:
Ever since Dr. Soon-Shiong vetoed the editorial board’s plan to endorse Kamala Harris for president, I have been struggling with my feelings about the implications of our silence.
I told myself that presidential endorsements don’t really matter; that California was not ever going to vote for Trump; that no one would even notice; that we had written so many “Trump is unfit” editorials that it was as if we had endorsed her.
But the reality hit me like cold water Tuesday when the news rippled out about the decision not to endorse without so much as a comment from the LAT management, and Donald Trump turned it into an anti-Harris rip.
Of course it matters that the largest newspaper in the state—and one of the largest in the nation still—declined to endorse in a race this important. And it matters that we won’t even be straight with people about it.It makes us look craven and hypocritical, maybe even a bit sexist and racist. 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 US Senate?
The non-endorsement undermines the integrity of the editorial board and every single endorsement we make, down to school board races. People will justifiably wonder if each endorsement was a decision made by a group of journalists after extensive research and discussion, or through decree by the owner.
Seven years ago, the editorial board wrote this in its series about Donald Trump “Our Dishonest President”: “Men and women of conscience can no longer withhold judgment. Trump’s erratic nature and his impulsive, demagogic style endanger us all.”I still believe that’s true.
In these dangerous times, staying silent isn’t just indifference, it is complicity. I’m standing up by stepping down from the editorial board. Please accept this as my formal resignation, effective immediately.
Mariel