LA Times Presidential Endorsement Decision: Owner’s Daughter Weighs In

The daughter of Los Angeles Occasions proprietor Patrick Quickly-Shiong is weighing in on the controversy that has erupted across the paper’s choice to not endorse a presidential candidate in 2024, saying that “for me, genocide is a line within the sand.”

In a thread of social media posts on Thursday, Nika Quickly-Shiong attributed the choice to an opposition to Democratic candidate Kamala Harris’ place on the conflict on Gaza. She wrote that her father, a South African transplant surgeon, had labored as an emergency surgeon at Baragwanath Hospital in Soweto throughout apartheid. “For my household, Apartheid will not be a obscure idea.” Sustaining that the choice to endorse was one made by the Los Angeles Occasions editorial board, Nika added, “This isn’t a vote for Donald Trump. It is a refusal to ENDORSE a candidate that’s overseeing a conflict on kids.”

She continued, “I’m pleased with the LA Occasions’ choice simply as I’m sure there is no such thing as a such factor as kids of darkness. There is no such thing as a such factor as human animals.”

The posts arrive because the Occasions faces an inner and exterior firestorm over its choice to not endorse a candidate within the 2024 election. Three editorial board members have resigned for the reason that choice was made public, with one, Mariel Garza, saying in an interview with the Columbia Journalism Assessment that proprietor Patrick Quickly-Shiong had made his want to not endorse clear by a message conveyed by Occasions govt editor Terry Tang. Beforehand, Garza had been drafting an overview of an editorial that might announce an endorsement of Harris, she mentioned.

In his personal assertion to The New York Occasions on Saturday, Patrick Quickly-Shiong mentioned through a spokeswoman, “Nika speaks in her personal private capability relating to her opinion, as each group member has the appropriate to do. She doesn’t have any function on the L.A. Occasions, nor does she take part in any choice or dialogue with the editorial board, as has been made clear many occasions.”

Semafor has moreover reported that Patrick Quickly-Shiong blocked the Occasions editorial board from endorsing a candidate despite the fact that it was making ready to.

Whereas some shops have instructed that Patrick Quickly-Shiong could have pushed for a non-endorsement in an effort to curry favor with former President Donald Trump within the occasion he’s re-elected, two well-placed sources on the Occasions recommend that the true cause is antipathy towards Harris for her and the Biden administration’s stance on Israel. “They’ve each been very essential of the administration and its assist for Israel, and Nika has been particularly vociferous about that,” says one supply. “She has often accused Israel of genocide and condemned the administration for his or her assist. Simply have a look at her Twitter feed — she has a Palestinian flag in her bio. Patrick is much less vocal, however he agrees together with her. I believe there’s no query that their refusal to endorse Kamala stems from that.”

The Hollywood Reporter has reached out to the Los Angeles Occasions for remark.

In July, a Occasions picture caption inserted in a narrative a few Los Angeles Metropolis Council movement to fund further safety for synagogues and Jewish locations of worship sparked outrage from the Jewish group and calls to boycott the paper.

The Quickly-Shiong household has confronted claims prior to now that they’ve tried to intervene within the paper’s protection. After govt editor Kevin Merida exited in January, THR reported that one current battle between Merida and the Quickly-Shiong household occurred when greater than three dozen Occasions reporters “signed a Nov. 9 assertion severely essential of Israel’s invasion of Gaza however barely mentioning the Oct. 7 terrorist assault on Israel launched from the Hamas-controlled territory.” Beneath strain from senior editors, Merida restricted those that signed the assertion from protecting the conflict in Gaza for 90 days.

Nika Quickly-Shiong has additionally confronted studies that she has influenced the paper’s editorial work regardless of not having an official function on the Occasions. THR has reported that throughout the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests, she fought with Occasions management over using the time period “looting” and criticized Occasions workers writers on Twitter. Politico has reported that in 2020, she appeared in workers conferences that tackled the difficulty of the place the paper had gone fallacious in protecting race points and that when she turned a West Hollywood public security commissioner, she pitched tales concerning the fee and “complained about headlines.”

On the time, Nika Quickly-Shiong advised Politico that she served as an adviser to the paper however mentioned she didn’t management editorial choices or have a “formal function.”

This story initially revealed Oct. 25 at 9:15 a.m.