EL SEGUNDO, Calif. — The owner of the Los Angeles Times is responding to backlash over his decision not to endorse either presidential candidate on the paper’s editorial page.

The editorials editor resigned in protest this week, telling the Columbia Journalism Review the Times was remaining silent on the contest in “dangerous times.”

“I think my fear is that if we chose either one that it would just add to the division,” Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong told Spectrum News in an exclusive interview. “Look what’s happened to the Twitter (X) feed. It’s gone a little crazy when we just said ‘you decide.’”

What You Need To Know

  • Some readers have taken to social media vowing to cancel their subscription to the Los Angeles Times in the wake of the debacle

  • The Los Angeles Times Guild Unit posted a statement on X asking loyal readers to keep their subscriptions but acknowledged many feel “angry, upset or confused”

  • Soon-Shiong said he asked the board to do a factual analysis of the actions by Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump during their time at the White House

  • “I don’t know how (readers) look upon me or our family as ‘ultra progressive’ or not but I’m an Independent," Soon-Shiong said

“I want us desperately to air all the voices on the opinion side, on the op-ed side,” Soon-Shiong said. “I don’t know how (readers) look upon me or our family as ‘ultra progressive’ or not, but I’m an Independent.”

Some readers have taken to social media vowing to cancel their Los Angeles Times subscription in the wake of the debacle.

The Times has struggled to reach subscriber goals and laid off 13% of newsroom positions in 2023. 

“You can voice your opinion, but I hope they understand by not subscribing that it just adds to the demise of democracy and the fourth estate,” Soon-Shiong said. 

The Los Angeles Times Guild Unit posted a statement on X asking loyal readers to keep their subscriptions but acknowledged many feel “angry, upset or confused.”

“We remain deeply concerned about The Times’s owner’s decision to block a planned endorsement, and his statement that unfairly shifts blame onto editorial board members. We are pressing for answers,” the statement said. 

Soon-Shiong said he asked the board to do a factual analysis of the actions by Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump during their time at the White House. In the interview, he pushed back against criticism he censored the editorial board, noting that Harris never sat for an interview with the editors. 

“As an owner, I’m on the editorial board and I shared with our editors that maybe this year we have a column, a page, two pages, if we want, of all the pros and all the cons and let the readers decide,” Soon-Shiong said of the conversation around making a presidential endorsement. 

The editor, Mariel Garza, said she had already drafted an endorsement of Harris when it was blocked by Soon-Shiong.

“It makes us look craven and hypocritical, maybe even a bit sexist and racist. How could we spend eight years railing against Trump and the danger his leadership poses to the country and then fail to endorse the perfectly decent Democrat challenger — who we previously endorsed for Senate,” Garza said in a letter posted by the Columbia Journalism Review. 

Garza could not be reached for comment by Spectrum News. 

Spectrum News 1 has a nightly news show in partnership with the Los Angeles Times.