LA Times Editor Kevin Merida ‘Resigns’ or Was He Forced Out?

Los Angeles Times editor Kevin Merida announced his resignation last week and it looks like he might have been forced out due to a conflict with the woke daughter of the paper’s owner over his decision to discipline reporters who signed an anti-Israel letter.

As the California Globe reported in a detailed piece last November “Uber-woke, uber-rich, uber-awful Nika Soon-Shiong – daughter of the owner of the Los Angeles Times – has called Israel an “apartheid state” that is now committing “genocide” against Palestinians in its response to Hamas’ barbaric attacks.

And that “after her dad,” Patrick Soon-Shiong, “bought the Times, she was given an “advisory” role at the paper, where she reportedly consistently crossed ethical lines, pushed for stories on her Commission, and for the paper to take a harder line against law enforcement in general.

“The Times – surprisingly, at the time – endorsed Democratic Socialists of America member Kenneth Meija for City Controller. Meija – who Soon-Shiong follows on Twitter (X) – was elected.

“According to a number of previously published reports, Soon-Shiong pushed the Times’ coverage even further to the left, causing significant internal issues as the staff struggled “to chart out coverage that converged with her interests.”

Now it looks like she clashed with Merida, an old school journalist who was trying to adhere to the outdated notion, in this age of identity politics, that reporters be as objective and dispassionate as possible.

The New York Times reported that “In recent months, Mr. Merida has been at odds with members of the Soon-Shiong family on a variety of matters, including editorial decisions and business priorities, according to two people with knowledge of the situation. Mr. Merida and the Soon-Shiong family have clashed over his decision to restrict journalists who signed a letter condemning Israel’s response to the Oct. 7 attacks from covering the conflict in Gaza, the people said.”

“Some members of the Soon-Shiong family raised objections to Mr. Merida’s decision, one of the people said, and they were unable to reach a resolution with Mr. Merida and even discussed selling the newspaper.”

So Merida had the courage to stand up for the principle that reporters should be objective and apparently got railroaded for it.

The conflict started this past November when some three dozen Los Angeles Times reporters and editors signed a hyperbolic open letter about press coverage of the war between Israel and Hamas,  urging journalists to use such loaded words as “genocide” and “apartheid” to describe Israel’s policies and practices.

The letter called for “an end to violence against journalists in Gaza” and urged “Western newsroom leaders to be clear-eyed in coverage of Israel’s repeated atrocities against Palestinians.”

But the letter made no mention of how the war started: namely with Hamas’s terrorist attack on Israel on October 7th. It was signed by more than 100 journalist from such places as the Chicago Sun Times, Huffington Post and MSNBC.

So reporters from the Los Angeles Times had taken a side in the conflict even though journalists are supposed to stay above the fray. News writers are not supposed to be partisan.

The following week after the November 7 letter, according to Semafor, Merida sent an email to staffers reminding them of the paper’s policy that a “fair-minded reader of the Times news coverage should not be able to discern the private opinions of those who contributed to that coverage, or to infer that the organization is promoting any any agenda.”

According to Semafor, Merida also responded by barring the reporters who had signed the letter from covering the war in Gaza for three months.

Los Angeles Times reporter Suhauna Hussain, who signed the letter, tried to cast Merida’s stance on objectivity as racially biased.  She wrote on Twitter that “Yes it’s true we’ve been taken off coverage, which in effect removes a great many Muslim journalists and most [if] not all Palestinians at the LA Times from coverage.”

actually, it wasn’t just a dozen LA Times employees who signed, it was more than three dozen. and yes it’s true we’ve been taken off coverage, which in effect removes a great many Muslim journalists and most of not all Palestinians at the LA Times from coverage https://t.co/88EE27wsxJ

— suhauna hussain (@suhaunah) November 17, 2023

She also wrote that it is  “not true or at least not clear signing letter is a violation of LA Times ethics policy” and the letter actually “reinforces policy by calling for unbiased coverage—no language prohibits signing letters & policy has not previously been used to discipline in this way to my knowledge.”

So to Hussain describing Israel’s conduct in Gaza as “genocide” is actually a clarion call for objectivity? Go figure.

It also seems she has never read the Los Angeles Times ethics policy which makes clear journalists should not take sides with public pronouncements. The policy says that “Journalists at The Times may not use their positions to promote personal agendas or causes” and that they should not “allow their outside activities to undermine the impartiality of Times coverage, in fact or appearance.”

Merida and Hussain did not respond to requests for comment.