Because I resigned because of the approval call

When I was suddenly fired from the Los Angeles Times in June 2023 via a form email – no calls, no meetings, no personal contact, just a mass email sent to around 74 employees – I spent time wondering whether the newspaper's management was so dysfunctional that no longer knew how to carry out a simple staff reduction, or if he simply didn't care about basic courtesy towards his employees, including someone like me who had been writing and/or editing the newspaper since 1989.

Now I have my answer.

Ultimately, I was hired again four months later for a temporary stint to help with election season, which requires a tremendous amount of time and research to produce responsibly. Voter endorsement is so important to readers that subscriptions increase every time they are published. Ultimately, the temporary stint led to an offer to rejoin the editorial board permanently.

I've spent exactly half my life working for the Times. Then, last week, I suddenly resigned because of the foolishness (a polite term for how I feel) of not supporting Kamala Harris. And I won't go back.

I understand, I respect owner Patrick Soon-Shiong's right to interfere with editorials; that's one place where ethically he can do it. It's certainly not the first time in 22 years that I've written editorials for the Times. Publisher/CEO Eddy Hartenstein wanted an editorial about for-profit trade schools ripping off students, and he was right. Another editor, Jeff Johnson, wanted to know why we shouldn't pass legislation that would put Los Angeles schools under some form of mayoral control; after listening to my reasoning, he took my side. Sometimes I agreed with the results, sometimes I didn't. But I never even thought about leaving them.

This is very different. If Soon-Shiong had decided early last spring that he no longer wanted to contest the presidential election, that would have been fair, neutral and legitimate. A strange decision, not to weigh in on the most crucial election of my life, but on his calling. But by making the decision at the last moment, when candidates have been nominated, polls are tight, and almost anything can sway the race one way or another, Soon-Shiong's anti-editorial stance is actually a decision of fact of making an editorial. — one without words, one who pretends to be invisible who unfairly implies serious flaws in Harris that put her on the same level as Donald Trump. Soon Shiong, whether he realizes it or not, practices the opposite of the neutrality he claims to seek.

An endorsement for Harris would change little; the editorial board has been critical of Donald Trump for eight years, which never seems to have bothered the owner. It's a progressive council in a Democratic state, Harris is from California. So approval was the natural next step. Not supporting her is the surprise move that casts a shadow on her, a shadow that could damage her in the most shaky states. The stakes are too great for these types of monkeys.

The belief that I would resign was formed and strengthened when Soon-Shiong published on

The news side already does an exceptional job of neutral reporting and analysis. He always provided key information. This is not an editorial. Editorials use good analysis to make a stand. Precisely for this reason we have an opinion staff separate from the journalistic one. Who would give credibility to this “neutral” analysis when the board has railed against Trump for so long? (Though I gave him credit for opening more federal jobs to people without a college degree in 2020; this is not Harris' original idea). Furthermore, how do we compare the performance of a vice president to that of a president? They are two completely different jobs. It would be like comparing apples and, well, an orange.

And why this sudden passion for neutrality and avoiding divisions on the editorial page? At that point we had expressed our position on 45 races. Shiong soon spent extra money to bring me back on staff to help produce those opinions. Suddenly, in the presidential race, we become neutered – sorry, neutral – reciters of facts?

In that post, the owner wrote the infuriating words that “the editorial board has chosen to remain silent.” It's completely false and seems like a convenient attempt to throw exactly the wrong people under the bus. At no point did anyone on the board choose to remain silent. It shut down our voice, causing nearly half the editorial board to resign. That's his prerogative, but then at least OWN IT.

Karin Klein is the author of two books including the one just published Rethinking college: A guide to thriving without a college degree (HarperCollins) and worked for the Los Angeles Times for 35 years, the last 22 of which were as a member of the editorial board covering education, health and science.

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