Two more LA Times editorial staff resign after the paper withholds a Harris endorsement

Los Angeles – Two more members of the Los Angeles Times editorial board have resigned after the newspaper’s owner blocked the board’s plan to endorse Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris for president.

Veteran journalists Robert Greene and Karin Klein announced their resignations Thursday, a day after editor Mariel Garza left the editorial page in protest of the decision by LA Times owner Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong to not support a candidate.

Greene, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing, said in a statement shared with the Columbia Journalism Review that he was “deeply disappointed” by the decision not to endorse Harris.

“I recognize that it is the owner’s decision,” he wrote. “But it hurt especially because one of the candidates, Donald Trump, has shown such hostility to principles at the heart of journalism – respect for the truth and respect for democracy.”

Garza told the Columbia Journalism Review that she resigned because the Times was silent on the presidential race during “dangerous times.”

“I am resigning because I want to make it clear that I am not comfortable with our silence,” Garza said. ‘In dangerous times, honest people must stand up. This is how I get up.”

Garza said the board intended to support Harris and that she had drafted the outline of a proposed editorial, but it was blocked by Soon-Shiong.

An editorial board operates separately from the newsroom, and the writers’ job is to present an issue and then take a side and make arguments to defend it.

Editorial writer Tony Barboza, who remains a member of the editorial board, said in a message on an internal Los Angeles Times message board Friday that the board had planned a series of editorials that would have culminated Sunday with an endorsement from Harris.

“Everything was killed,” he wrote. “I am deeply disturbed to see these facts being mischaracterized, and the owner’s decision not to sanction this follow-up race being blamed on his employees.”

Soon-Shiong said in a post on the social media platform

Soon-Shiong, who bought the newspaper in 2018 and is a member of the editorial board, said the board “chose to remain silent and I accept their decision.”

Greene, who has written about water, drought and Los Angeles County government, among other topics, said he was also concerned by Soon-Shiong’s claim that the editors had chosen to remain silent.

Green wrote that policy analysis should be done by the news side of the paper and that the purpose of an editorial board is “to take a position and convincingly defend it.”

“I left in response to the refusal to take a position, and to the erroneous claim that the editors had made a choice,” Green wrote.

Klein said in a statement on Facebook that her decision to resign also came after seeing Soon-Shiong’s post on X.

“The decision to resign was made simple and easy when he posted yesterday on .

“The news side does a great job of neutral analysis. That is not an editorial comment,” she added.

In an interview with Spectrum News Thursday, Soon-Shiong pushed back against criticism that he censored the editorial staff.

“As an owner, I’m on the editorial staff and I shared with our editorial staff that this year we might have a column, one page, two pages, if we want, with all the pros and cons and we’ll let the readers decide,” Soon said -Shiong.

He said he feared that supporting a candidate would deepen divisions in the country.

“I desperately want all voices from the opinion side, from the opinion side, to be heard,” Soon-Shiong said. “I don’t know how (the readers) consider me or our family ‘ultra-progressive’ or not, but I am an independent.”