The daughter of Los Angeles Times owner Patrick Soon-Shiong is weighing in on the controversy that has erupted around the paper’s decision not to endorse a presidential candidate in 2024, saying that “for me, genocide is a line in the sand.”
In a thread of social media posts on Thursday, Nika Soon-Shiong attributed the decision to an opposition to Democratic candidate Kamala Harris’ position on the war on Gaza. She wrote that her father, a South African transplant surgeon, had worked as an emergency surgeon at Baragwanath Hospital in Soweto during apartheid. “For my family, Apartheid is not a vague concept.” Maintaining that the decision to endorse was one made by the Los Angeles Times editorial board, Nika added, “This is not a vote for Donald Trump. This is a refusal to ENDORSE a candidate that is overseeing a war on children.”
She continued, “I’m proud of the LA Times’ decision just as I am certain there is no such thing as children of darkness. There is no such thing as human animals.”
The posts arrive as the Times faces an internal and external firestorm over its decision not to endorse a candidate in the 2024 election. Three editorial board members have resigned since the decision was made public, with one, Mariel Garza, saying in an interview with the Columbia Journalism Review that owner Patrick Soon-Shiong had made his wish not to endorse clear through a message conveyed by Times executive editor Terry Tang. Previously, Garza had been drafting an outline of an editorial that would announce an endorsement of Harris, she said.
In his own statement to The New York Times on Saturday, Patrick Soon-Shiong said via a spokeswoman, “Nika speaks in her own personal capacity regarding her opinion, as every community member has the right to do. She does not have any role at the L.A. Times, nor does she participate in any decision or discussion with the editorial board, as has been made clear many times.”
Semafor has additionally reported that Patrick Soon-Shiong blocked the Times editorial board from endorsing a candidate even though it was preparing to.
While some outlets have suggested that Patrick Soon-Shiong may have pushed for a non-endorsement in order to curry favor with former President Donald Trump in the event he is re-elected, two well-placed sources at the Times suggest that the real reason is antipathy toward Harris for her and the Biden administration’s stance on Israel. “They’ve both been very critical of the administration and its support for Israel, and Nika has been especially vociferous about that,” says one source. “She has regularly accused Israel of genocide and condemned the administration for their support. Just look at her Twitter feed — she has a Palestinian flag in her bio. Patrick is less vocal, but he agrees with her. I think there’s no question that their refusal to endorse Kamala stems from that.”
The Hollywood Reporter has reached out to the Los Angeles Times for comment.
In July, a Times photo caption inserted in a story about a Los Angeles City Council motion to fund additional security for synagogues and Jewish places of worship sparked outrage from the Jewish community and calls to boycott the paper.
The Soon-Shiong family has faced claims in the past that they have attempted to intervene in the paper’s coverage. After executive editor Kevin Merida exited in January, THR reported that one recent conflict between Merida and the Soon-Shiong family occurred when more than three dozen Times reporters “signed a Nov. 9 statement severely critical of Israel’s invasion of Gaza but barely mentioning the Oct. 7 terrorist attack on Israel launched from the Hamas-controlled territory.” Under pressure from senior editors, Merida restricted those who signed the statement from covering the war in Gaza for 90 days.
Nika Soon-Shiong has also faced reports that she has influenced the paper’s editorial work despite not having an official role at the Times. THR has reported that during the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests, she fought with Times leadership over the use of the term “looting” and criticized Times staff writers on Twitter. Politico has reported that in 2020, she appeared in staff meetings that tackled the issue of where the paper had gone wrong in covering race issues and that when she became a West Hollywood public safety commissioner, she pitched stories about the commission and “complained about headlines.”
At the time, Nika Soon-Shiong told Politico that she served as an adviser to the paper but said she did not control editorial decisions or have a “formal role.”
This story originally published Oct. 25 at 9:15 a.m.
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