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LA Times columnist resigns, accuses newspaper owner of ‘shameful capitulation' to Trump
By Gabriel Hays
Published December 06, 2024
Ex-Los Angeles Times senior legal columnist Harry Litman announced he had resigned from the liberal outlet this week, accusing the paper’s owner of "appeasing" President-elect Donald Trump.
Appearing on MSNBC on Thursday, Litman told network anchor Nicolle Wallace that the Los Angeles Times has abandoned its responsibility to confront Trump’s threat to democracy by taking an explicitly less partisan stand under owner Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong.
"I think they cowered and are worried about their personal holdings and just being threatened by Trump. And that’s a really shameful capitulation, I think. So, I just felt I couldn’t be a part of it and had to resign," Litman said on air, adding to what he had argued in a recent Substack article.
Soon-Shiong, a billionaire tech entrepreneur and physician who bought the Times in 2018, caused an uproar among liberals – including staffers at his outlet – when he announced in September that the paper would not be making a presidential endorsement in the 2024 election.
Ex-L.A. Times columnist Harry Litman said he resigned from the outlet because it has declined to directly oppose President-elect Trump.
The paper's editorial board has endorsed every Democratic presidential candidate since 2008 and had planned to endorse Vice President Kamala Harris. However, Soon-Shiong insisted he wanted the Times to adopt a non-partisan approach to covering the election this year.
The decision sparked backlash from staff, prompting three editorial board members to resign in protest. Since then, Soon-Shiong has doubled down on this commitment to non-partisanship, pledging to establish a "new editorial board" that he said will promote reader trust in the media.
Providing evidence of this shift, conservative CNN commentator Scott Jennings accepted a position on the editorial board last month. Commenting on the owner’s new vision, he wrote on X, "I think Dr Soon-Shiong is doing something important and groundbreaking and am honored he asked me to play a role in that."
Litman became the latest Los Angeles Times employee to quit, citing what he called the owner’s "capitulation to Trump" on MSNBC.
Wallace asked him about his decision to resign, to which he replied, "Papers have such an important role to play now and in this country. Trump has captured the political arena, maybe the Supreme Court, and he’s going after now the FBI, potentially the military, and, really, they’re one of the few institutions to be able to stand up and push back."
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Los Angeles Times owner Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong made the decision in October for his paper to not endorse a 2024 presidential candidate. (Marcus Yam / Contributor)
"And it’s in their finest tradition, and Trump has made clear he’ll go after them. And that’s an, you know, absolute five-alarm fire," he added.
The columnist, a former U.S. Attorney appointed by President Bill Clinton, declared on his Substack page on Thursday that he had "written my last op-ed for the Times" and "resigned my position" the day before.
"I don’t want to continue to work for a paper that is appeasing Trump and facilitating his assault on democratic rule for craven reasons," he added in the article.
He continued telling Wallace, "And I just think this is not a time for balance when you have someone who’s not telling the truth on the other side. And it’s a deep responsibility. And instead, I think they cowered and are worried about their personal holdings and just being threatened by Trump."
In addition to a new editorial board, Soon-Shiong recently announced his paper was looking at rolling out an AI-powered "bias meter" in the near future.
During an episode of "The Mike Gallagher Show," Soon-Shiong told Jennings, who was guest hosting, "Whether it be news or opinion — more likely the opinion or the voices — you have a bias meter so somebody could understand as they read it that the source of the article has some level of bias."
President-elect Donald Trump at the Fox Nation Patriot Awards. (Fox Nation)
The owner expressed hope that the meter would launch by January.
The Los Angeles Times did not immediately reply to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
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