Dingus of the week: Patrick Soon-Shiong
Gotta hear both sides
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Hed: Dingus of the week: Patrick Soon-Shiong
Dek:
This week, Mariel Garza, head of editorials at the Los Angeles Times, resigned after the paper’s billionaire owner, Patrick Soon-Shiong, blocked the editorial board from endorsing Kamala Harris for president.
In her resignation letter, Garza noted, “It makes us look craven and hypocritical, maybe even a bit sexist and racist. How could we spend eight years railing against Trump and the danger his leadership poses to the country and then fail to endorse the perfectly decent Democrat challenger—who we previously endorsed for the US Senate?”
Soon-Shiong argued on Twitter that the editorial board was to blame and that he, a reasonable man, had given them a choice to simply outline the pros and cons of each candidate.
He wrote:
The Editorial Board was provided the opportunity to draft a factual analysis of all the POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE policies by EACH candidate during their tenures at the White House, and how these policies affected the nation. In addition, the Board was asked to provide their understanding of the policies and plans enunciated by the candidates during this campaign and its potential effect on the nation in the next four years. In this way, with this clear and non-partisan information side-by-side, our readers could decide who would be worthy of being President for the next four years.
Instead of adopting this path as suggested, the Editorial Board chose to remain silent and I accepted their decision. Please #vote.
What he’s describing isn’t an editorial; it’s reporting, which the LA Times has done and continues to do very well. And look, it even has a comprehensive voter guide.
A newspaper editorial is supposed to synthesize the reporting from the other sections of the paper and put together an opinion, or majority recommendation. It’s a little bit nitpicky, but the idea is that if all your journalists are reporting that a meteor is going to hit your city, it’s the editorial section that would advise readers to run. Run from danger, dear god, run! would be the editorial board’s recommendation based on reliable reporting that a fireball is streaking through the sky.
Former LA Times journalist Matt Pearce wrote, “The news department describes the world as it is; the opinion pages describe what ought to be. An editorial endorsement will usually contain a description of the candidates’ relative strengths and weaknesses, and they are incredibly important in local races where voters don’t get nearly as much exposure to the candidates. And then the endorsement will suggest what you should do. It’s not a commandment. But it is an argument.”
And danger is in fact coming. Trump’s was the Deepwater Horizon of presidencies, and a second would be worse. He appointed the justices who overturned Roe v. Wade and are undermining the Voting Rights Act. He banned people from Syria, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen from entering the country and temporarily halted the refugee program. He has been found liable for sexual abuse and called for a coup on live television. He’s promised to weaponize the Justice Department against his political opponents and he’s a big fan of Hitler’s verbiage. And these are just a few highlights.
The LA Times has extensively covered both Trump and Harris, and all the imminent dangers of a second Trump presidency. Its journalists know about the giant disaster running for office, and an editorial saying, “Please don’t vote for the disaster!” would be the least they could do.
But Soon-Shiong wanted them instead to list the pros and cons of running democracy off a cliff. Sir, what would that look like?
Pro: You don’t have to stand in line to vote anymore.
Con: That’s because you won’t be allowed to vote if you are not a land-owning white man, because it’s what our founding fathers wanted.
Pro: Rachel Maddow will keep her job for the next 4 years.
Con: She will be reporting from federal prison.
Pro: Your taxes will decrease.
Con: You will die of dysentery because you can’t afford health insurance. And when you try to ford the river on the way to urgent care your oxen will also die.
Pro: The male loneliness epidemic will end.
Con: Because you are wearing an ankle bracelet that delivers an electric shock when you walk more than 3 yards away from the off-brand Charlie Kirk assigned to you by JD Vance.
Pro: The borders will be more secure.
Con: You can never leave.
Pro: Good for Russia.
Con: There is no downside. At all. Why would you even ask that?
(This newsletter is sponsored by Russia Today.)
Pro: Your taxes are lower.
Con: You’ll need the money to care for all the children you are being forced to have. Also, JD Vance will be in the delivery room measuring your baby’s head with calipers. It’s all in Project 2025.
Pro: We won’t have to deal with Donald Trump when he loses.
Con: We have to deal with Donald Trump when he wins.
I guess you have to hear both sides?
As Garza explained to Sewell Chan in the Columbia Journalism Review,
I didn’t think we were going to change our readers’ minds—our readers, for the most part, are Harris supporters…. We’re a very liberal paper. I didn’t think we were going to change the outcome of the election in California.
But two things concern me: This is a point in time where you speak your conscience no matter what. And an endorsement was the logical next step after a series of editorials we’ve been writing about how dangerous Trump is to democracy, about his unfitness to be president, about his threats to jail his enemies. We have made the case in editorial after editorial that he shouldn’t be reelected.
Newspapers, and their owners and editors, love to argue that the news is a vital public good. But they want to run it like they are selling cans of Busch (which, while delightful, is not a public good). And it doesn’t make sense to employ some of the best journalists in the nation, have them report on the impending political Chernobyl that would be a second Trump presidency, and then bar them from saying, “Don’t vote for him.”
Oh, and as the CJR also reported, “Elon Musk, who is friendly with Soon-Shiong—they are both South African–born billionaire entrepreneurs—replied to [Soon-Shiong’s Twitter post]: ‘Makes sense.’”
But I’m sure Soon-Shiong’s reported longstanding friendliness with the world’s richest man and Trump’s most rabid supporter is unrelated. Right? Surely, a billionaire wouldn’t try to tip the scales in favor of fascism just because it would benefit him personally, right?
And now for something good
Omaha is finally relevant and I am so happy for them.
Horny spider donuts? HORNY SPIDER DONUTS!
Friend of the newsletter Margaret Eby is having a book launch party in Philadelphia on November 19. If you’re in the area, you should attend! There will be food and drinks and general gaiety, and perhaps somewhere in the crowd you’ll see a certain newsletter editor. (But you’ll never know.)
Season 3 of “Somebody Somewhere” premiers on Sunday. Curl up with a blanket and some wine. Enjoy the show. BUT ONLY AFTER YOU HAVE VOTED.
A Missouri school named a building after a beloved custodian.
Levar Burton achieved the nation’s highest honor: a compliment on his suit from Derek Guy, the menswear guy on Twitter. Oh, he also won a national Humanities Medal.
Members of the Exonerated Five filed a defamation lawsuit against Donald Trump.
What I am enjoying
On Tuesday night, I attended a fundraiser for the Iowa Abortion Access Fund. We had a stretch goal of $30,000. But friends, we raised $45,000!!
It was one of the most successful banquets in the history of the fund. And it was so amazing to have a night where we could eat and laugh and come together to do one good thing for Iowa. I also learned that readers of THIS VERY NEWSLETTER account for a huge portion of new donors to the fund, which is incredible because most of you all don’t even live here.
I grew up one of those kids waving the “Abortion is murder” signs at protests. But in college, after I was sexually assaulted, I was able to go to a Planned Parenthood and get the morning-after pill. I saved my own life that day, and my kids and my writing exist because I had that choice. My sister, for whom a terrible car accident and complications from surgery mean pregnancy would be dangerous, has benefited from the choice of abortion. And I am so glad she is here. And I will continue to fight so that all people have that choice.
I don’t know how the election will turn out. Frankly, I’m stressed as hell. But I do know that no matter what, we have work to do. And I am so grateful for all of you who are doing the work.
Also, that night, after the fundraiser, I had too many old-fashioneds and talked shit about local politicians.
This week, I published a review of “Somebody Somewhere.” The series ends with Bridget Everett singing Miley Cyrus’s “The Climb.” And in her rendering of it, it becomes a love letter to friendship and middle places, and hope.
“Male loneliness” is this year’s Economic Anxiety. The obvious solution to ‘male loneliness’ is telling males to get off their asses and do something. Volunteer at a food bank or school. Take a watercolor painting or cooking class. DO FUCKING SOMETHING. (Start by taking a shower and putting on nicer clothes. Nobody wants to see you in a stained Browning gun shirt.)
When I was growing up, the solution offered to us young women who never had dates was to make ourselves into something men wanted, usually by losing weight, wearing makeup, and putting our brains in a box and pretending to be weak, stupid, cowards. Now that young men can’t get dates, the solution is for women to lose weight, wear makeup, and put our brains in a box and pretending to be weak, stupid, cowards. This is infuriating.
I have a friend who works at LA Times, and I'm keeping my subscription because she and her colleagues on the environment desk do great work. But this is awful. I'm so over billionaires "rescuing" media.