The Scoop
The owner of the Los Angeles Times has blocked the paper from endorsing a candidate for president this year.
Last week, the LA Times published its electoral endorsements for the 2024 election. And while the paper noted in its first line that it is “no exaggeration to say this may be the most consequential election in a generation,” that was the only mention of the presidential race in its endorsements.
The paper’s editorial board, which has endorsed Democratic candidates in every presidential race since it first endorsed then-Sen. Barack Obama in 2008, was preparing to do so once again this election.
But according to two people familiar with the situation, executive editor Terry Tang told editorial board staff earlier this month that the paper would not be endorsing a candidate in the presidential election this cycle, a decision that came from the paper’s owner Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, a doctor who made his fortune in the healthcare industry.
The paper did not explain its decision, though it noted at the bottom of its online endorsement page that “the editorial board endorses selectively, choosing the most consequential races in which to make recommendations.”
An LA Times spokesperson told Semafor, “We do not comment on internal discussions or decisions about editorials or endorsements.”
Know More
It wouldn’t be the first time since he bought the paper in 2018 that owner Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong had overruled the wishes of the paper’s editorial board. In 2020, the paper met with Democratic candidates for president for interviews with the intention of making a pick in the race. But after deciding to endorse Elizabeth Warren in the Democratic presidential primary, at the last minute Soon-Shiong overruled its leadership and said there would be no endorsement in the primary race (the paper endorsed Joe Biden in the general election).
The paper also raised eyebrows over several local endorsements it made in recent election cycles of candidates supported by Soon-Shiong’s daughter Nika, whose progressive politics on racial justice and the war in Gaza have at some points heartened and emboldened some on staff and and other points caused friction. At the time, the paper told Politico that there was no involvement from Nika Soon-Shiong in the endorsements.
Still, it wouldn’t be the first time that the LA Times has declined to endorse candidates in a presidential general election. From the mid-1970s until 2008, the paper declined to endorse any presidential candidates following internal dissent over the decision to endorse Richard Nixon for reelection months after the Watergate break in, a decision the publisher Otis Chandler said he later came to regret. Before that, the Times had a near century-long streak of Republican presidential endorsements dating back to the paper’s founding in 1881.
Notable
- Soon-Shiong was portrayed as a brilliant, boundary-pushing inventor and businessman in a New Yorker profile published after he bought the paper.
- Tensions between the paper’s owner and its staffed peaked in 2022.
- The former editor of the Los Angeles Times, Kevin Merida, left after clashing with the Soon-Shiong about a dog bite that involved a friend of the owner.