Los Angeles Times editorials editor resigns after owner blocks presidential endorsement

[hawkeye21]

75. I was an editorial page editor too at a midsize Midwestern daily

I wrote ALL the editorials, which are the opinions of the newspaper as an institution. But I never wrote anything that I didn't believe in myself. I also wrote a signed column three times a week that featured my personal opinions, independent of the newspaper itself.

Anyway, the First Amendment rights of any newspaper belong to the owner/publisher, so the owner has the authority to do what he did. In ten years at my newspaper, I was only stopped from running an editorial once. I had written something critical of a prominent local businessman who was charged with some crimes. The owner/publisher always received an advance copy. He called me in to this office and explained that what I had written would not be published. He said the person in question was a long-time friend, and he wasn't going to call him out publicly in his newspaper. And that was his right.

But for the LA Times owner to use his First Amendment rights to silence his own newspaper on an issue as vital to the nation and the world as this is shameful and disgusting. And make no mistake: Disrupting her life by quitting her job at the LA Times over this is inspiring. Threatening to quit is one thing; actually doing it is a whole other level. Imagine the reality of doing such a thing.

Thomas Jefferson said that if it were left to him to choose having a government or having newspapers, he would have no hesitation in choosing newspapers. That view persisted in this country for over 200 years. Today's newspapers, with some exceptions, are not worth saving. The LA Times has despicably joined that list.