The editorials editor for the Los Angeles Times stepped down Wednesday after the newspaper’s billionaire owner stopped the publication’s expected endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris.
Mariel Garza is leaving her post at the Times because she wants “to make it clear that I am not OK with us being silent” after biotech entrepreneur Patrick Soon-Shiong scrapped the paper’s endorsement for president.
“In dangerous times, honest people need to stand up,” Garza told the Columbia Journalism Review she said. “This is how I’m standing up.”
Last week, Soon-Shiong told the newspaper’s editorial board through the outlet’s editor that the LA Times would not endorse Harris or former President Donald Trump, which was first reported by Semafor.
A draft of a proposed editorial giving Harris the nod was even written by Garza before it was called off, the Columbia Journalism Review reported.
She told the journalistic-centric outlet she didn’t think the endorsement would change voters’ minds because the LA Times is a “very liberal paper” and most of its readers are Harris supporters.