Florida AG seeks New York Times records over Israel-Hamas coverage, shareholder impact

WASHINGTON (TNND) — Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier is demanding years of internal records and documents from The New York Times Company, arguing the newspaper’s editorial standards and coverage of the Israel-Hamas war could affect shareholder value.

In a 28-page letter Monday, Uthmeier sought six years’ worth of internal records and board documents from the company. Uthmeier is acting as legal counsel for the Florida State Board of Administration, which manages the state’s public pension funds. He said the state’s retirement system pension fund holds roughly 160,000 shares of The New York Times.

Since the New York Times got rid of its independent public editor, it has several times now admitted, only after outside pressure, that published articles did not meet its standards,” Uthmeier said in a video posted to his ‘X’ account.

Uthmeier’s letter raised concerns about how the Times’ editorial standards might impact shareholder value and pointed to at least two pieces involving the Israel-Hamas war where the Times either issued corrections or faced major pushback over published articles.

One example cited was an article from Oct. 17, 2023, in which the Times headline attributed an explosion to an Israeli strike based on a claim by Hamas. Six days later, Uthmeier wrote the Times published an editor’s note conceding its coverage “relied too heavily on claims by Hamas” and had left readers with an incorrect impression of what was known.

According to reports, between October 7th 2023 and June 2024, the Times admitted 72 errors in its coverage of the Israel-Hamas war that had to be corrected and many if not most of those errors favored Hamas,” Uthmeier said.

The New York Times did issue a response Monday, referencing the First Amendment.

We are aware of the demand letter, which, while positioned as a request under corporate law, is a clear attempt to chill First Amendment-protected journalism,” Danielle Rhoades Ha, the newspaper’s senior vice president for communications, told Politico.

Meanwhile, Uthmeier said Florida is seeking to use rights under New York law to review internal company materials.

We want to exercise our rights under New York law to review the companies internal board documents, meeting minutes, reports and other materials to see what the directors know,” he said.

In the letter, Uthmeier noted the Florida Retirement System is one of the largest public pension systems in the U.S., with 1.2 million members and beneficiaries.