L.A. Times owner’s decision not to endorse in presidential race sparks resignations, questions

The Times did not make an endorsement in the race between former President Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris. “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.” “The Editorial Board chose to remain silent,” Soon-Shiong contended in his X post, “and I accepted their decision.” The three journalists who resigned said they were not silent but, rather, disagreed with the owner’s proposal. “I left in response to the refusal to take a stand,” Greene wrote, “and to the incorrect assertion that the editorial board had made a choice.” In a statement Saturday to the New York Times, the owner’s daughter said her family made “the joint decision” not to endorse in the presidential race. In his interview with The Times on Friday, Soon-Shiong said the decision was not tied to the war in Gaza and his daughter’s views were “her opinion.” For many news consumers, the very existence of editorial writers and editorial boards is a point of confusion. A little more than two months after Trump took office in 2017, the editorial board published a series of scathing essays under the headline: “Our dishonest president.” One editorial described Trump’s initial actions as “a train wreck” that “will rip families apart, foul rivers and pollute the air, intensify the calamitous effects of climate change and profoundly weaken the system of American public education for all.” Several thousand customers, including actor Mark Hamill, dropped their subscriptions this week in protest over the non-endorsement.