LAT Loses Subscribers, More Staff After Endorsement Uproar

Fallout from the news that the owner of the Los Angeles Times blocked the paper's endorsement of Kamala Harris continues, with further resignations and a slew of canceled subscriptions. The Guardian reports that on Thursday, a day after editorials editor Mariel Garza stepped down over the commotion, two other members of the Times' editorial board—Pulitzer Prize winner Robert Greene and education and environment writer Karin Klein—also resigned, telling Semafor it was over the blocked endorsement and owner Patrick Soon-Shiong's subsequent statement on it. Semafor also talked to editorial board member Jim Newton, who helped resurrect the Times' presidential endorsements in 2008 after a decades-long hiatus.

Newton calls Soon-Shiong's non-endorsement decision "a civic letdown and a disappointment. Bad for the paper, bad for Los Angeles, bad for the campaign." He adds that political endorsements give readers some insight on "how the editorial board reasons and what values it seeks to uphold," and that by not including an endorsement for president this year, it undermines the paper's credibility. "It makes you wonder, and when people wonder, they assume the worst," he notes. Subscribers seem to already be making those assumptions: The Guardian reports that about 2,000 customers—including Star Wars' Mark Hamill—nixed their subscriptions over the past couple of days, with hundreds citing "editorial content" as the reason.

The union repping Times employees is now begging others not to follow suit, per Fox News. "We know many loyal readers are angry, upset, or confused, and some are canceling their subscriptions," the Los Angeles Times Guild Unit Council wrote Thursday in a statement. "Before you hit the 'cancel' button: That subscription underwrites the salaries of hundreds of journalists in our newsroom. Our member-journalists work every day to keep readers informed during these tumultuous times." NPR, meanwhile, notes that the Times' decision not to endorse could be part of a wider media trend this election cycle to avoid irking former President Trump. (More Los Angeles Times stories.)