WASHINGTON (TNND) — Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier on Monday demanded access to The New York Times’ internal board documents after the outlet admitted to making mistakes when covering the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel.
Uthmeier posted a video on X where he explained that as the state’s attorney general, he serves as legal counsel for Florida’s Board of Administration which oversees state pension funds.
“The New York Times is a publicly traded company, and our pension holds about 160,000 shared of New York Times stock which benefits our retirees,” he said.
Uthmeier said that ever since the newspaper got rid of its independent public editor, it admitted that many published articles did not meet the standards for publishing, specifically about the Hamas attack on Israel almost three years ago.
“According to reports, between October 7, 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, favored Hamas,” the attorney general said.
He explained that The New York Times brands itself as an unbiased publication to investors.
“So we want to exercise our rights under New York law to review the company’s internal board documents, meeting minutes, reports and other materials to see what the directors know,” Uthmeier said. “The First Amendment protects what a newspaper publishes, but it does not let public companies’ board ignore its shareholders.”
The New York Times has not responded to Uthmeier at this time. He said the newspaper has 14 days to respond.