General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsLos Angeles Times editorials editor resigns after owner blocks presidential endorsement
https://www.cjr.org/business_of_news/los-angeles-times-editorials-editor-resigns-after-owner-blocks-presidential-endorsement.phpMariel Garza, the editorials editor of the Los Angeles Times, resigned on Wednesday after the newspapers owner had blocked the editorial boards plans to endorse Vice President Kamala Harris for president.
I am resigning because I want to make it clear that I am not OK with us being silent, Garza told me in a phone conversation. In dangerous times, honest people need to stand up. This is how Im standing up.
On Oct. 11, Patrick Soon-Shiong, who bought the newspaper for $500m in 2018, informed the papers editorial board that the Times would not be making an endorsement for president. The message was conveyed to Garza by Terry Tang, the papers editor.
The board had intended to endorse Harris, Garza told me, and she had drafted the outline of a proposed editorial. She had hoped to get feedback on the outline and was taken aback upon being told that the newspaper would not take a position.
*snip*
Moostache
(10,114 posts)There is no honor is staying on at a propaganda outfit to hold onto a paycheck. The death of local newspapers and journalism in favor of the internet and influencers is one of the defining elements of our current cultural rot and malaise. I salute this action and just wish it was MORE COMMON.
DENVERPOPS
(9,810 posts)drop his profits from the LA Times into the cellar.........literally overnight .......Time to fight back, (actually way way past the time to fight back)......If that were to happen, every subscriber would quit, overnight.........
verargert
(50 posts)Hermit-The-Prog
(36,291 posts)DENVERPOPS
(9,810 posts)at least it would keep him busy for months and months, trying to deal with the fall out, maybe even years trying to replace the great employees, and dealing with the on-going expenses, with no Revenue......
Another item is that these 95+% of Republican Owned/Operated media are not going to be needed if Trump wins. He will simply install a "State Owned" media, like Pravda in Russia.....They will all be obliterated, and they are too stupid to realize it.
Same with all the Trumphumping voters. They are going to be financially destroyed along with all of us Dems, as they will no longer be needed, and THEY also are too stupid to realize it. Trump has said it when he has recently stated: "Vote for me this time, and you won't ever have to vote again"............ WTF do they all think this means?????????????
And all retirement and investment funds owned by the lower 99%? He and the Republican Party have also stated that they will be getting rid of all regulatory agencies, including the SEC........
Of course, even if Harris wins, and the Republicans take the Senate, (and/or the House) they will try to continue to try and erode the economy and Democracy..............
Russia, NKorea, China, Iran, Saudi's couldn't be happier and are all trying to help torpedo Harris and Dems......
Trump will pull out of Ukraine, and Putin will annex it forcefully, and Trump will obliterate NATO, making them ALL immediately vulnerable to Russian take over.........
Katie Bar The Door, and get ready to Bend Over........
orangecrush
(21,155 posts)Let's find out.
calimary
(83,835 posts)Loud and vigorous questioning of that papers coverage, lack of objectivity, and blatant toady-ism. That might make a dent.
soldierant
(7,744 posts)wven a minor financial loss would hit him where it hurts.-
LuvLoogie
(7,496 posts)And it's killing independent media
Fox killed journalism before "influencers"
This is plain old money silencing voice. It's on the internet where we found out about this LA Times move.
And Donald Trump is running for President a third time so people are about to vote for him a sixth time.
Moostache
(10,114 posts)When I dump on "influencers" what I mean is the incessant and omnipresent chattering monkeys on every social media outlet selling stuff (usually Chinese imported, patent-stealing or ignoring, junk) and a select few becoming social influencers and causing - in my estimation - irreparable harm.
It would take a full-length novel and investigation to do this premise justice, so I will just say that I hold an absolute contempt in my heart, mind and soul for what "social" media has become in the modern world. I accept that at 54 I am dangerously close to being considered a luddite old fogey, shaking his fist at the clouds and yelling at the damn kids to stay off the lawn... so be it. But, there is no convincing me that social media is not the PERFECT vehicle for unregulated and unscrupulous capitalism to run amok with, and as it does so, it leaves a wake of human damage that is never quantified but ever increasing in magnitude.
The dissemination of lies and use of propaganda as a control mechanism is as old as the pyramids (or older), but the breadth and scope of modern BS reach is unmatched in human history. 20 years ago, the internet was nascent and its reach was largely limited to text, as multimedia bandwidth was too extreme for the dispensing tools of the time. Fast forward to now, where physical media (discs, tapes, tangible goods) have been all but eliminated and everything is distributed, downloaded and more and more becoming licensed for use or decoding. Piracy is rife, but the control over the populace is frightening and faster by the week. What once slowed the digital take over of everything - physical size and space requirements - have been eliminated....
So what does that wall of word salad indicate or mean?
Simply this - we are in the midst of another transition period, just as humanity has gone through from stone to bronze to iron to steel and fire to steam engine to internal combustion to electric drive, but in this current transition, there are no authorities, there is no control on the billionaires and their use of money to buy outsized and inappropriate influence - whether in the form of teenage girls dancing and self-exploiting on TikTok and Instagram or int he form of middle-aged excentrics jumping around like a clown behind a modern day fascist. Its all intertwined and related and Carl Sagan's prophecy of a dangerous time when society is awash in technology it does not understand and cannot begin to distinguish from magic.
We are in trouble. There are unspeakable weapons available and a society that is rapidly becoming numb to everything, unaware of the true dangers and potential calamities that are no longer only in the minds of dystopian fiction or horror writer's minds.
Sorry...this is again an insufficient explanation, but its the best I can do off the cuff...
Liberal In Texas
(14,350 posts)What a shame.
Captain Zero
(7,390 posts)they had Japan's Generals.
LauraInLA
(1,200 posts)tenderfoot
(8,640 posts)The California Section used to be my favorite but it's just bleed and lead anymore.
Initech
(101,482 posts)cyclonefence
(4,817 posts)but holding on to a paycheck is pretty damn important, when you have a journalism degree and want to work for a newspaper.
I would not put the burden of that kind of support on the rest of the staff *unless* they are unionized.
Initech
(101,482 posts)Fuck Patrick Soon-Shiong. To the hottest of hells.
brush
(56,942 posts)malaise
(277,077 posts)Is a South African of Chinese descent - another beneficiary of apartheid
Nevilledog
(53,018 posts)malaise
(277,077 posts)😀
canetoad
(18,007 posts)South African expats.
malaise
(277,077 posts)dchill
(40,080 posts)dchill
(40,080 posts)electric_blue68
(17,343 posts)ancianita
(38,056 posts)SA's apartheid laws in his and his parents' day classified Asians as "Coloureds".
Which meant that they didn't have as strict segregation and poor treatment as Africans, but they also were segregated and discriminated against.
Later, East Asians from Taiwan and Hong Kong were designated "honorary whites."
I learned about this in Freedom Park in Praetoria, in their interactive museum, as powerful an experience as the Holocaust Museum in DC, if not moreso.
What's puzzling is that Soon-Shiong got into and graduated from Witwatersrand in 1975, but the apartheid govt didn't change any other Chinese folks' legal designation until the 1984 Group Areas Act, where they could only live among whites by asking permission of the whites in "Whites Only" designated areas.
To get into Witwatersrand, he must have made quite an interesting case to authorities, because he's obviously brilliant, if not genius.
MagickMuffin
(16,990 posts)Whether its print or televised the oligarchs own what we see hear and consume.
malaise
(277,077 posts)That is all
erronis
(16,678 posts)Bought the WaPo.
Not sure why that is different than the US plutocrats that own the NYT. They are all different than 'us'.
malaise
(277,077 posts)Murdoch? Musk? Thief?
Not one is promoting democracy
erronis
(16,678 posts)eppur_se_muova
(37,247 posts)In 1925, Fitzgerald wrote a short story titled The Rich Boy. In 1926, it was published in Red Book magazine and included what became a very popular collection of Fitzgerald's early short stories, titled All the Sad Young Men.
The third paragraph of the story says:
"Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me. They possess and enjoy early, and it does something to them, makes them soft where we are hard, and cynical where we are trustful, in a way that, unless you were born rich, it is very difficult to understand. They think, deep in their hearts, that they are better than we are because we had to discover the compensations and refuges of life for ourselves. Even when they enter deep into our world or sink below us, they still think that they are better than we are. They are different."
Clearly, thats not a favorable view of rich people.
But years later, Ernest Hemingway, who had a sometimes-warm, sometimes-acrimonious relationship with Fitzgerald, decided to mock those lines from The Rich Boy in his short story The Snows of Kilimanjaro.
Hemingways original version of The Snows of Kilimanjaro was printed in the August 1936 issue of Esquire magazine. In a passage in that original version, Hemingway wrote:
The rich were dull and they drank too much, or they played too much backgammon. They were dull and they were repetitious. He remembered poor Scott Fitzgerald and his romantic awe of them and how he had started a story once that began, The very rich are different from you and me. And how some one had said to Scott, Yes, they have more money. But that was not humorous to Scott. He thought they were a special glamorous race and when he found they weren't it wrecked him as much as any other thing that wrecked him.
Understandably, Fitzgerald was shocked and offended.
***
more: http://www.quotecounterquote.com/2009/11/rich-are-different-famous-quote.html
erronis
(16,678 posts)TheProle
(2,811 posts)ancianita
(38,056 posts)So's Murdoch IIRC. He owns Fox, WSJ, New York Post, Harper Collins and other stuff abroad.
Regardless, you're right, they're not interested in democracy as long as either supports Trump.
malaise
(277,077 posts)Long before Slobby
ancianita
(38,056 posts)they showed no evidence of that before Trump showed up. With the exception of the tabloid Post and thatcherite WSJ, media was corporate. MSM didn't swing so right wing until the "fake news" and "enemy of the people" disdain got flung into the body politic.
Bmoboy
(392 posts)msongs
(69,830 posts)wolfie001
(3,400 posts)riversedge
(72,547 posts)Freethinker65
(10,945 posts)ShazzieB
(18,371 posts)I had no idea they had done that. Shame on them. That paper endorsed Barack Obama back in 2008 and 2012...but Kamala Harris isn't good enough for them? SMDH
I already canceled my subscription because I had stopped reading it and didn't feel like paying for it any longer. Now I'm VERY glad I did!
yardwork
(63,683 posts)Dr. Soon-Shiong is a surgeon , inventor, and entrepreneur. It sounds like he's not sure who will win this election and he doesn't want to offend either Trump or Harris, because he'll be doing business with whomever wins.
This is why billionaires shouldn't own newspapers. Too many conflicts of interest.
GoCubsGo
(32,853 posts)Every year prior to Obama, they endorsed Republicans.
ShazzieB
(18,371 posts)I remember what a huge deal it was when they endorsed Obama, because it was so out of character for them. I would never be shocked by the Trib endorsing a Republican, but telling people to vote for Gary Johnson (or any 3rd party candidate) as a protest vote seems like a new low to me.
I assume they must be really disgusted with Trump (which I certainly understand) but just can't bring themselves to endorse another Democrat. The problem is, protest voting for someone who can't possibly win is an exercise in futility, and I'm sure they know it. By telling their readers to vote for Johnson, they're basically telling people to throw their votes away, and that seems like very irresponsible journalism to me.
Right wing or not, I thought the Trib was better than that, or at least they were at one time.
Raven123
(5,889 posts)StarryNite
(10,619 posts)Truth to power!
senseandsensibility
(20,141 posts)Dem2theMax
(10,214 posts)Integrity shines through.
Jack Valentino
(863 posts)BattleRow
(993 posts)another example that the only real men these days are women.
erronis
(16,678 posts)Last edited Thu Oct 24, 2024, 09:59 AM - Edit history (1)
While most women I know are better decision makers, there have been quite a few in history that may have had (ahem) a bit too much testosterone.
BattleRow
(993 posts)intheflow
(28,830 posts)Im just saying
Fullduplexxx
(8,168 posts)BattleRow
(993 posts)One cannot substitute a wishbone for a steel backbone.
(I suspect it's more like titanium for some of these fearless females.)
Basso8vb
(178 posts)How the mighty have fallen.
tenderfoot
(8,640 posts)Fuck that billionaire asshole owner.
Cha
(304,115 posts)Much Better Job! 💙🌊🇺🇸🕯️🕊️
ificandream
(10,296 posts)maxsolomon
(34,872 posts)An endorsement or no endorsement is not going to make much of a difference; CA will go to Harris in the EC.
PedroXimenez
(492 posts)newspaper jobs are super hard to come by these days, good for her.
Wiz Imp
(1,203 posts)But why couldn't the endorsement have been run anyway? It seems they could have gone ahead and published it anyway and resigned immediately afterward. Unless there were others at the paper who agreed with the owner's stance and were somehow able to make sure they wouldn't allow it to be seen. If that is the case, those people absolutely need to be identified to the public as well.
LauraInLA
(1,200 posts)Ranting Randy
(72 posts)Good to see I was slightly ahead of the times.
kimbutgar
(22,945 posts)ancianita
(38,056 posts)Demovictory9
(33,463 posts)Sparkly
(24,289 posts)NO excuse. Disgraceful.
Bev54
(11,785 posts)BadgerMom
(2,932 posts)She is 💯 correct. May she land a professional position of influence quickly.
BaronChocula
(2,431 posts)His mind has been poisoned by the allure of scumbag billionaire-ism. He's not even THAT rich as far as billionaires go.
I used to live up the street from him. He had been in construction of his cobbled-together "compound" for what seemed like years. He bought up properties from adjoining homeowners for much of the space. It appeared to me that when someone didn't want to sell to him he'd build right up to their property. It looked like an F U, but I don't think I ever got confirmation of that being the case.
What really struck me as weird is most rich people in Brentwood want to be up in the hills where you have nice views of all the people down below. PSS built in what was basically the foot of a small ravine down in the flats.
I know Michelle Chan, his wife would talk to school kids about South Africa and Apartheid. They both gave $$$ to Hillary. Patrick has joined the Giving Pledge, but now there's this editorial fiasco. I think he just might not know who he is.
orangecrush
(21,155 posts)Needs to follow suit.
Stop sanetizing Trump.
flying-skeleton
(744 posts)I'll be canceling my LA Times subscription.
TBF
(33,833 posts)Joinfortmill
(16,143 posts)Ramsey Barner
(582 posts)Iggo
(48,192 posts)Im just saying, when you work in an ethics based field, and management behaves in a willfully unethical manner, the correct move is to resign.
LudwigPastorius
(10,567 posts)Ms. Garza is a true journalist.
Hopefully, shell find a new job soon at an organization with more integrity.
hawkeye21
(194 posts)I wrote ALL the editorials, which are the opinions of the newspaper as an institution. But I never wrote anything that I didn't believe in myself. I also wrote a signed column three times a week that featured my personal opinions, independent of the newspaper itself.
Anyway, the First Amendment rights of any newspaper belong to the owner/publisher, so the owner has the authority to do what he did. In ten years at my newspaper, I was only stopped from running an editorial once. I had written something critical of a prominent local businessman who was charged with some crimes. The owner/publisher always received an advance copy. He called me in to this office and explained that what I had written would not be published. He said the person in question was a long-time friend, and he wasn't going to call him out publicly in his newspaper. And that was his right.
But for the LA Times owner to use his First Amendment rights to silence his own newspaper on an issue as vital to the nation and the world as this is shameful and disgusting. And make no mistake: Disrupting her life by quitting her job at the LA Times over this is inspiring. Threatening to quit is one thing; actually doing it is a whole other level. Imagine the reality of doing such a thing.
Thomas Jefferson said that if it were left to him to choose having a government or having newspapers, he would have no hesitation in choosing newspapers. That view persisted in this country for over 200 years. Today's newspapers, with some exceptions, are not worth saving. The LA Times has despicably joined that list.
Mr. Sparkle
(3,072 posts)whats with all these south Africans supporting Trump lately
SpankMe
(3,202 posts)I think that explains it.
bucolic_frolic
(46,405 posts)where his newspaper is extremely unlikely to decide any race anywhere.
Duh.