Friday, October 25, 2024

Patrick Soon-Shiong:
Chickenshit Owner

The Los Angeles Times has lost two more longtime editorial writers, the latest in a growing exodus to protest owner Patrick Soon-Shiong’s interference with the paper’s planned endorsement of Kamala Harris, TheWrap can exclusively report.

On Thursday, editorial writer Karin Klein, and Pulitzer Prize-winner Robert Greene both quit; their exits come just one day after Editorial Editor Mariel Garza, who resigned in protest on Wednesday.

Greene has not yet spoken publicly about his exit, but in a statement posted to a private forum that was subsequently shared with TheWrap, Klein laid her reasons for quitting.

Channeling Harris’ campaign slogan “we’re not going back,” Klein called Soon-Shiong a “chickenshit” who threw the editorial team “under the bus,” and argued, essentially, that the decision to stop the endorsement was itself an endorsement of sorts for Harris’ opponent, Donald Trump.

Soon-Shiong, Klein wrote, has as owner the “right to interfere with editorials; that is the one place where he can ethically do so.” But, by shooting down this particular editorial, she said he had actually created one of his own. “A wordless one, a make-believe-invisible one that unfairly implies that [Harris] has grievous faults that somehow put her on a level with Donald Trump.”

In fact, she argued, the timing itself can only be seen as a direct attack on the Democratic candidate “that hits just at the time when she cannot afford hits.”

Klein also specifically called out Soon-Shiong’s dissembling statement Wednesday night that attempted to blame the editorial board itself for the debacle, while at the same time effectively confirming he had indeed blocked the endorsement.

Oh look, a South African is a both-sidesing hypocrite. Quelle surprise! You don't suppose he's some sort of racist & sexist as well, do you? 

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