The L.A. Times board was planning to endorse Kamala Harris, according to a report from Semafor, but owner Patrick Soon-Shiong decided against an endorsement.
The Washington Post also announced last week that it would not endorse a candidate. According to the Post, owner and Amazon founder, Jeff Bezos made that decision.
Subscription cancellations have since spiked at both papers. NPR reported today that two-hundred-thousand people have canceled their subscriptions to the Washington Post; the Guardian reported that almost 2,000 people have canceled their L.A. Times subscriptions citing “editorial content” reasons.
Oscar Garza, director of the specialized journalism arts and culture program at the University of Southern California and a former Times editor, said the decision raises concern about the role of the paper’s billionaire owners.
He called it “more than a little troubling because of the implications that the owner’s business interests might trump the journalistic vision of the newspaper.”
In a statement on X, the former Twitter, Times owner Soon-Shiong said he gave the board the chance to write a nonpartisan analysis of the presidential candidates -- but not an endorsement. The board decided not to do this.
Soon-Shiong bought the L.A. Times in 2018. In 2020, he prevented the board from issuing an endorsement in the Democratic presidential primary, but the paper did endorse Joe Biden in the general election.
On Friday, the L.A. Times Guild Unit Council and Bargaining Committee said in a statement that it was concerned by the decision not to endorse a presidential candidate.
In another twist, Patrick Soon-Shiong’s daughter, Nika, told the New York Times that the family made the decision not to endorse in protest of what they see as Harris’s support for Israel in the ongoing war in Gaza.
Patrick Soon-Shiong told the New York Times that his daughter speaks in her own personal capacity and has no role at the L.A. Times, and that she does not participate in decisions or discussion with the editorial board.
Mariel Garza, the Times’ former editorials editor, resigned on Wednesday in response to the elder Soon-Shiong’s decision.
In an interview with the Columbia Journalism Review, she said, “in dangerous times, honest people need to stand up”.
Two more members of the L.A. Times editorial board, Robert Greene and Karin Klein, have followed suit with a decision to leave.