KEEP ROCKIN’! NYT: Daughter of LA Times Owner Nixed Paper’s Endorsement of Kamala Because She Wasn’t Sufficiently Anti-Zionist.
Thousands of readers canceled subscriptions. Three members of the editorial board resigned. Nearly 200 staff members signed an open letter to management demanding an explanation, complaining that the decision this close to the election had undermined the news organization’s trust with readers. The Times’s News Guild, the newsroom’s union, lodged a protest. In social media posts and subsequent interviews with his own news organization, Dr. Soon-Shiong framed the choice as an attempt at neutrality.
But in a statement on Saturday that was swiftly challenged by the paper, his daughter, Nika Soon-Shiong, 31, a progressive political activist who has frequently been accused of trying to meddle in the paper’s news coverage, said the decision was motivated by Ms. Harris’s continued support for Israel in its war in Gaza.
“Our family made the joint decision not to endorse a Presidential candidate. This was the first and only time I have been involved in the process,” Ms. Soon-Shiong, who has no formal role at the paper, said in a statement to The New York Times. “As a citizen of a country openly financing genocide, and as a family that experienced South African Apartheid, the endorsement was an opportunity to repudiate justifications for the widespread targeting of journalists and ongoing war on children.”
In a statement, Dr. Soon-Shiong said the daughter did not speak for the paper.
“Nika speaks in her own personal capacity regarding her opinion, as every community member has the right to do,” the owner said, according to a spokeswoman. “She does not have any role at The L.A. Times, nor does she participate in any decision or discussion with the editorial board, as has been made clear many times.”
The editor of editorials, who was among those who have resigned, said she was taken aback by the daughter’s assertion.
“If that was the reason that Dr. Soon-Shiong blocked an endorsement of Kamala Harris, it was not communicated to me or the editorial writers,” Mariel Garza, who resigned on Tuesday, said in a statement. “If the family’s goal was to ‘repudiate justifications for the widespread targeting of journalists and ongoing war on children,’ remaining silent did not accomplish that.”
Over the past six years, writers and editors have increasingly chafed at interference by Dr. Soon-Shiong, 72, and his family in the newsroom, where owners are generally regarded less as proprietors with the right to impose their personal views than as guardians of a public trust.
I assume there’s more than a little, “This means you too, Sulzberger” in that last paragraph, given the numerous collective temper tantrums from the Gray Lady’s young coddled staffers in recent years.
Speaking of media temper tantrums, ever since Glenn started it, we’ve been using the “Just think of the media as Democratic Party operatives with bylines, and it all makes sense” tag for years now. And rather helpfully, the past week’s meltdowns at the L.A. Times and WaPo have really driven that point home: Barred From Endorsing Kamala Harris, Journalists Freak Out and Quit Their Jobs.
(Classical reference in headline.)
Indeed, and Trump should act accordingly in his stump speeches this week.