The daughter of billionaire Los Angeles Times owner Patrick Soon-Shiong suggested Saturday her family made the decision to pull its endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris over her support for Israel’s war on Gaza, according to The New York Times, which noted the Los Angeles Times owner downplayed his daughter’s authority over the paper.
Soon-Shiong purchased the LA Times in 2018. (Photo by Pier Marco Tacca/Getty Images)
Nika Soon-Shiong, a progressive activist, told The New York Times on Saturday the pulled endorsement “was an opportunity to repudiate justifications for the widespread targeting of journalists and ongoing war on children.”
Earlier, she said “genocide is the line in the sand” when tweeting about the endorsement decision Thursday, and noted in her statement to The New York Times it was “the first and only time” she was involved in the endorsement process.
Soon-Shiong told the Times his daughter was speaking in her own capacity and that she does not participate in any decision or discussion with the editorial board, “as has been made clear many times.”
Nika Soon-Shiong, however, has been repeatedly accused of meddling with the newspaper’s editorial team.
Others have speculated that Soon-Shiong, an entrepreneur who made his money in biotechnology, pulled the Harris endorsement because, as NPR pointed out, he will have medical products subject to Food and Drug Administration approval and regulation, and might not want to alienate Trump.
And Stat News reported that Soon-Shiong had discussed a major U.S. health care role with Trump in 2017, though he eventually didn't get it.
Get Forbes Breaking News Text Alerts: We’re launching text message alerts so you'll always know the biggest stories shaping the day’s headlines. Text “Alerts” to (201) 335-0739 or sign up here.
Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, best known for conducting reporting on the Watergate scandal for The Washington Post in 1972, joined in the widespread criticism of that paper’s decision—reportedly made by another billionaire, Jeff Bezos—of killing a planned endorsement of Harris, saying in a statement Saturday it “ignores the Washington Post’s own overwhelming reportorial evidence on the threat Donald Trump poses to democracy.”
Nika’s statement about the Los Angeles Times decision to kill its Harris endorsement follows multiple resignations from the newspaper’s board from members who left in protest of Soon-Shiong’s blocking of the endorsement. The pulled endorsement coincided with a similar decision from Bezos, which reportedly “stunned” both news and opinion journalists at the paper. Outrage also ensued at the Post, with Karen Attiah, a Post columnist, characterizing the decision as an “insult to those of us who have literally put our careers and lives on the line, to call out threats to human rights and democracy.”