Los Angeles Times sees resignations and loss of subscriptions after owner blocks Harris endorsement

Nearly 2,000 Los Angeles Times subscribers cancelled their subscriptions to the paper, citing “editorial content” reasons, after Patrick Soon-Shiong, the paper’s billionaire owner, refused to let its editorial board endorse Kamala Harris for president. And that was just on Tuesday and Wednesday.

After the paper’s editorials editor, Mariel Garza, resigned in protest on Wednesday, two more members of the Los Angeles Times editorial board resigned on Thursday.

Robert Greene, who won a Pulitzer Prize for the Los Angeles Times in 2021 for editorials on criminal justice reform, and Karin Klein, who wrote editorials about education and the environment, both told Semafor they were leaving the paper. Green specifically cited Soon-Shiong’s refusal to allow the paper to endorse a presidential candidate, as well as the owner’s subsequent comments about his decision.

The biotech billionaire, who bought the Los Angeles Times in 2018, told a local TV news station on Thursday that his goal in blocking the newspaper from endorsing a candidate for president this year was to be “less divisive”.

“I think my fear is, if we chose either one, that it would just add to the division,” Soon-Shiong told Spectrum News, noting he was a “registered independent”.

On Wednesday, Soon-Shiong tweeted that he had asked the editorial board to instead publish a list of positive and negative attributes about both of the presidential candidates, but that the board had refused.

Soon-Shiong said that the dangers of divisiveness in American politics was highlighted by the responses to his tweet about his decision not to endorse, saying the feed had “gone a little crazy when we just said, ‘You decide.’”

Soon-Shiong’s attempt at an explanation was widely criticized as “nonsensical,” as a columnist for Poynter, a nonprofit dedicated to advancing media ethics, put it.

Mariel Garza, the editorials editor who had resigned from the Los Angeles Times on Wednesday, told the New York Times that “what he outlines in that tweet is not an endorsement, or even an editorial.”

Garza and Klein did not respond to requests for comment.

The lack of transparency around Soon-Shiong’s reasons for not allowing his paper to make a presidential endorsement has left journalists in the Los Angeles Times’ newsroom frustrated and confused, and appears to have sparked an uprising among some of the paper’s readers.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, the paper saw a spike in readers cancelling their subscriptions to the paper, with a total of 1,793 citing “editorial content” as the reason for their cancellation, a number that has circulated among current and former Los Angeles Times journalists.

A spokesperson for the Los Angeles Times did not respond to a request for comment on the uptick in cancellations.

Asked by Spectrum News about his response to readers who were canceling their subscriptions, Soon-Shiong said, “I hope that they understand by not subscribing, it just adds to the demise, frankly, of democracy and the fourth estate.”

On Thursday, leaders of the union that represents Los Angeles Times journalists posted a message on X pleading with readers not to unsubscribe from the paper.

“We know many loyal readers are angry, upset or confused, and some are cancelling their subscriptions,” the union leaders wrote. “Before you hit the ‘cancel’ button: That subscription underwrites the salaries of hundreds of journalists in our newsroom.”

The paper’s own journalists were “deeply concerned” about Soon-Shiong’s decision and “pressing for answers,” even as they continued to do their jobs reporting the news, the union leaders wrote.

Later that afternoon, Mark Hamill, the Star Wars actor, tweeted to his 5m followers: “I canceled our subscription to the LA Times because I want to make it clear that I am not okay with them being silent. In dangerous times, honest people need to stand up. This is the only way to show I’m standing up.”

Hamill tagged his tweet with the hashtag, #ThankYouMarielGarza, saluting the editorials page editor who had first resigned from the paper, and who made public the fact that Soon-Shiong had specifically blocked the editorial board from endorsing Harris.