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Los Angeles Times – Meltdown!

The Los Angeles Times suffered a meltdown yesterday after its owner asked the editors to make an unbiased assessment, and they refused.

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The Los Angeles Times is suffering a meltdown. Knowing that the Kamala Harris campaign is dying, its owner decided that the paper should endorse no one for President. Or so the initial reports indicated. Actually, he called on the editors to evaluate the candidates in an unbiased manner. They, still enamored of Harris and the totalitarian Marxism for which she stands, wanted to give her an unqualified endorsement. When the owner said no, the editor in charge of the editorial page resigned. Now the paper is losing subscribers over it. Thus the Los Angeles Times is discovering what happens to a paper that decided long ago to tell its subscribers what they wanted to hear, instead of what they needed to hear – the truth.

The decision by the Los Angeles Times not to endorse

The Los Angeles Times has consistently endorsed every Democratic candidate for President for the last four election cycles. They endorsed Obama in 2008 and 2012, Clinton in 2016, and Biden in 2020. Before then, the Times endorsed no one after last endorsing Richard Nixon in 1972. People suspected Nixon’s complicity in the Watergate Break-in even then. But the paper had endorsed every Republican Presidential candidate beginning with James G. Blaine in 1884. Endorsing Nixon in 1972 was part of the tradition. Nixon’s subsequent resignation proved a mortifying embarrassment, so the paper stayed neutral – until, as mentioned, 2008.

So what changed? On Tuesday afternoon (October 22), Semafor first reported that the Los Angeles Times would not endorse Vice-President Kamala Harris. The Times’ editorial board had definitely intended to endorse Harris. But this time, when it published its endorsements in various races, Kamala Harris’ name did not appear.

The answer is that the paper came under new ownership in 2018, when Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong bought it. Actually, a family feud might be at work here. Dr. Soon-Shiong’s daughter Nika has ordered several high-profile far-left endorsements, and also taken HAMAS’ side in the Fourth Arab-Israeli War. Her father went along with this, up to a point. Then he forbade the endorsement of Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) as a candidate for the Democratic Presidential nomination in 2020.

And now, without any explanation, the Times has declined to endorse anyone for President this year.

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An editor quits in revolt

The only available detail on that decision comes from two “persons familiar with the situation” (PFWTS). They state that Terry Tang, Executive Editor, told editorial board staff that the Los Angeles Times would make no Presidential endorsement this year. Ms. Tang handed down that memo “earlier this month.” (Actually the memo issued on October 11.)

Nor is any explanation forthcoming. Evidently the Mmes/Mdlles/Messrs. PFWTS weren’t privy to Dr. Soon-Shiong’s thinking on the matter. Jim Hoft at The Gateway Pundit speculated that someone at the paper “is no longer willing to attach its brand to the sinking ship of the Harris-Walz ticket.”

That someone is the owner and only the owner. That we know because yesterday Mariel Garza, editorial page editor, resigned in protest. The Columbia Journalism Review obtained a copy of the letter Ms. Garza sent to her boss, Ms. Tang:

Terry,

Ever since Dr. Soon-Shiong vetoed the editorial board’s plan to endorse Kamala Harris for president, I have been struggling with my feelings about the implications of our silence.

I told myself that presidential endorsements don’t really matter; that California was not ever going to vote for Trump; that no one would even notice; that we had written so many “Trump is unfit” editorials that it was as if we had endorsed her.

But the reality hit me like cold water Tuesday when the news rippled out about the decision not to endorse without so much as a comment from the LAT management, and Donald Trump turned it into an anti-Harris rip.

Of course it matters that the largest newspaper in the state—and one of the largest in the nation still—declined to endorse in a race this important. And it matters that we won’t even be straight with people about it.

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 the US Senate?

The non-endorsement undermines the integrity of the editorial board and every single endorsement we make, down to school board races. People will justifiably wonder if each endorsement was a decision made by a group of journalists after extensive research and discussion, or through decree by the owner.

Seven years ago, the editorial board wrote this in its series about Donald Trump “Our Dishonest President”: “Men and women of conscience can no longer withhold judgment. Trump’s erratic nature and his impulsive, demagogic style endanger us all.”

I still believe that’s true.

In these dangerous times, staying silent isn’t just indifference, it is complicity. I’m standing up by stepping down from the editorial board. Please accept this as my formal resignation, effective immediately.

—Mariel

Sewell Chan, who wrote the CJR article, was Mariel Garza’s predecessor as editorial page editor at the Los Angeles Times. He says of Dr. Soon-Shiong and his decision:

I have deep respect for the Soon-Shiong family, who rescued the paper from the doomed and recently bankrupt Tribune Company. He’s a decent and thoughtful person, and as the owner of the paper, it is ultimately up to him to set the editorial direction. I worked well with Soon-Shiong during my time running the opinion section, and when I left the Times to edit the nonprofit Texas Tribune, in 2021, it was on good terms.

Still, I believe Soon-Shiong could have better communicated his intentions—both in 2020 and now—and I worry that his decision has set off unnecessary speculation that California’s largest newspaper has serious doubts about Harris, who was formerly the state’s attorney general and then junior US senator.

Jim Hoft quoted sporadically from Mr. Chan’s article, and quoted the Trump campaign’s full statement on the non-endorsement:

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The Ls keep piling up for Kamala Harris and Tampon Tim.

In Kamala’s own home state, the LosAngelesTimes— the state’s largest newspaper — has declined to endorse the Harris-Walz ticket, despite endorsing the Democrat nominees in every election for decades.

Even her fellow Californians know she’s not up for the job. The Times previously endorsed Kamala in her 2010 and 2014 races for California attorney general, as well as her 2016 race for U.S. Senate — but not this time.

It’s just the latest humiliating blow for the Harris-Walz campaign, who have also suffered stinging non-endorsements from the Teamsters and the International Association of Fire Fighters amid a revolt by rank-and-file union members against their traditional Democrat alignment.

Everyone knows the Harris-Walz campaign is a sinking ship. Two more weeks until it’s submerged for good.

Chan disputes the Trump statement in one particular. He says the Los Angeles Times endorsed Steve Cooley, Republican candidate for Attorney General, in 2010. In fact the Times was giving Harris an endorsement in her Democratic Primary, not the general election.

Chan also reports these seemingly anguished words Ms. Garza spoke to him by telephone:

I didn’t think we were going to change our readers’ minds—our readers, for the most part, are Harris supporters. We’re a very liberal paper. I didn’t think we were going to change the outcome of the election in California.

But two things concern me: This is a point in time where you speak your conscience no matter what. And an endorsement was the logical next step after a series of editorials we’ve been writing about how dangerous Trump is to democracy, about his unfitness to be president, about his threats to jail his enemies. We have made the case in editorial after editorial that he shouldn’t be reelected. Mariel Garza

Readers revolt

Then, late last night, the readers’ revolt began. But these are no ordinary readers of news media. These are some of the most prominent people in Los Angeles and particularly in Hollywood. Breitbart carried the story, and embedded some X posts from some of those prominent names.

This conversation included a photo of a post by Dr. Soon-Shiong mentioning that he had dined with Trump. Repeated searches do not disclose the post; this could reflect X’s limited archival capacity. This dinner would have taken place in late 2016 or early January 2017. Dr. Soon-Shiong would buy the Los Angeles Times in 2018.

Incredible honor dining / Pres-elect @realDonaldTrump last night. He truly wants to advance #healthcare for all. Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong

Amazingly, Dr. Soon-Shiong denies that he intervened and overruled Terry Tang’s decision to endorse Harris.

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So many comments about the @latimes Editorial Board not providing a Presidential endorsement this year. Let me clarify how this decision came about.

The Editorial Board was provided the opportunity to draft a factual analysis of all the POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE policies by EACH candidate during their tenures at the White House, and how these policies affected the nation. In addition, the Board was asked to provide their understanding of the policies and plans enunciated by the candidates during this campaign and its potential effect on the nation in the next four years. 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.

Instead of adopting this path as suggested, the Editorial Board chose to remain silent and I accepted their decision. Please #vote.

Elon Musk, owner of X, accepted that at face value, no doubt considering it an eminently sensible request. But many X users, and (presumably) now former subscribers, most emphatically did not. They accused him of mendacity, cowardice, wrongful interference in editorial decisions, toadying for tax cuts, and various other offenses and characteristics that do not bear mention here. Aside from whether they believed him, they decried the notion of giving equal time to both sides. In short, they wanted him to choose a side – the side of communism. He didn’t, and they despise him for it.

Mike LaChance at The Gateway Pundit supposes it could have been worse for liberals. The Los Angeles Times could have endorsed Trump.

What exactly is happening at the Los Angeles Times?

As Sewell Chan admits, Patrick Soon-Shiong bought the Times in a fire sale from the now-defunct Tribune Company. Many fewer people were reading it, despite Angelenos and other Southern Californians routinely electing liberal officials and legislators. Indeed, some of the names Breitbart cited in the cacophony of denunciation are A-list Hollywood names. Randi Mayem Singer wrote the script for Robin Williams’ 1993 hit Mrs. Doubtfire, and Evan Handler appeared as one of the “studs” in Sex and the City.

They are denouncing the new owner, who rescued the paper from bankruptcy, for editorial interference and support of illiberal causes. That’s all very well, but where were they when the Tribune Company was failing and the paper was up for sale? Had they bought the paper themselves, they could indulged whatever flights of philosophical fancy they wished, on their own dimes. The problem, of course, is that the dimes would have run out.

The editorial staff are no better, and neither is the reviewer at the Columbia Journalism Review. He snidely disputes the Trump campaign’s account of the history of the Los Angeles Times with Kamala Harris. But he does so without conducting elementary research; indeed he didn’t even follow the links! If he had, he would have known the detail CNAV found out with a single click.

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Mariel Garza herself presents the perfect picture of Trump Derangement Syndrome. “Erratic,” “impulsive,” and “demagogic” describe Harris, not Trump. And they also describe Ms. Garza and her colleagues.

Fraud and delusion

CNAV despises fraud, and projection – literally, throwing off on others – is the worst kind of fraud. Projection combines a confidence trick with false witness.

More than that, too many citizens of the United States actually believe, or even want to believe, the swindle. Kamala Harris can follow Godwin’s Law, as she recently has, and get away with it, because enough people believe it. And because her masters at BlackRock, Vanguard, State Street, and the World Economic Forum pay for the Godwinian message. For those who have forgotten, Godwin’s Law states:

The longer an argument, debate, or political campaign continues, the higher the probability becomes that a party or candidate will compare something or someone to Adolf Hitler and/or the program of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party.

CNAV does not believe for one atomic-clock cycle that Godwin’s Law limits itself to online discourse. Godwin’s Law didn’t start with the Second World War, either. It started in this century, shortly after the Fall of the World Trade Center and the ensuing war. And that, too, started with projection.

The Los Angeles Times has well earned the nickname Los(t) Angeles Times. A new owner tries, at a late date, to ask his editors to think about what they’re saying. They don’t think; they emote, as Mariel Garza and those Hollywood A-listers are now doing. Sixteen years of trying to pretend that it’s Soviet-era Pravda have taken their toll. Let’s see whether Dr. Soon-Shiong decides to put the paper on the market again.

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Terry A. Hurlbut
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Terry A. Hurlbut has been a student of politics, philosophy, and science for more than 35 years. He is a graduate of Yale College and has served as a physician-level laboratory administrator in a 250-bed community hospital. He also is a serious student of the Bible, is conversant in its two primary original languages, and has followed the creation-science movement closely since 1993.

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