Two more LA Times editors quit after Harris endorsement quashed

LOS ANGELES – Two more editorial board members at the Los Angeles Times stepped down after the paper’s owner, billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong, blocked a planned endorsement of Kamala Harris for president.

Karin Klein and Robert Greene announced their decisions to leave the paper this week, following that of Mariel Garza, who lead the editorial board.

Klein said in a post on Facebook that while she agreed with the owner’s right to influence editorials, the decision against an endorsement is “a wordless one, a make-believe-invisible one that unfairly implies that she has grievous faults that somehow put her on a level with Donald Trump.”

The website Semafor reported earlier that Greene was leaving, while the Columbia Journalism Review posted his resignation statement.

Soon-Shiong, a biotech magnate who bought the newspaper in 2018, said in a post on X that he had given the editorial board an option of listing the good points and bad points of both candidates, instead of a traditional endorsement. He said the board chose to not do that.

“The board was not the one choosing to remain silent,” Klein wrote in her resignation email. “He blocked our voice.”