Is fascism bad? Views differ
By 
The editorials editor of the LA Times has resigned:
Mariel Garza, the editorials editor of the Los Angeles Times, resigned on Wednesday after the newspaper’s owner blocked the editorial board’s plans to endorse Vice President Kamala Harris for president.
“I am resigning because I want to make it clear that I am not okay with us being silent,” Garza told me in a phone conversation. “In dangerous times, honest people need to stand up. This is how I’m standing up.”
On October 11, Patrick Soon-Shiong, who bought the newspaper for $500 million in 2018, informed the paper’s editorial board that the Times would not be making an endorsement for president. The message was conveyed to Garza by Terry Tang, the paper’s 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.
“I didn’t think we were going to change our readers’ minds—our readers, for the most part, are Harris supporters,” Garza told me. “We’re a very liberal paper. I didn’t think we were going to change the outcome of the election in California.
“But two things concern me: This is a point in time where you speak your conscience no matter what. And an endorsement was the logical next step after a series of editorials we’ve been writing about how dangerous Trump is to democracy, about his unfitness to be president, about his threats to jail his enemies. We have made the case in editorial after editorial that he shouldn’t be reelected.”
Obviously, the presidential endorsement of the LA Times is not in itself a big beal, and to the extent that they matter endorsements are much more important for state and local races than national ones. If the paper just decided they weren’t going to issue presidential endorsements, I wouldn’t have a problem with that.
The actual logic of the owner, however, is just baldly stupid and irresponsible:
“i asked my staff to both sides fascism and they said no so i punished them” https://t.co/Caw4jGDHuR— Marisa Kabas (@marisakabas2) October 23, 2024
It is very much in the interests of rich owners of publications that Trump win, and it’s going to manifest itself directly in too many cases.