By Jonathan Stempel <\/p>\n
NEW YORK, Sept 23 (Reuters) – Florida’s state-run public pension fund and a conservative think tank sued the New York Times on Wednesday, seeking materials to determine whether \u200cthe company’s board is letting the newspaper promote biased editorial coverage against Israel. <\/p>\n
According to a \u200cpetition filed in a New York state court in Manhattan, a series of factual errors in Times reporting on various subjects \u200bsupports a reasonable inference that the board has allowed journalistic standards to be “weaponized within the company to serve the personal agendas of unchecked editors.” <\/p>\n
The State Board of Administration of Florida, which oversees the Florida Retirement System Trust Fund, and the National Center for Public Policy Research said they are not second-guessing the newspaper’s \u200ceditorial judgment, but want assurances the \u2060board is taking necessary safeguards to ensure the Times follows its editorial standards and avoids “biased and unreliable” reporting. <\/p>\n
A Times spokesperson had no immediate comment. <\/p>\n
Both petitioners are shareholders, \u2060and the Florida pension fund had about $235.7 billion of assets under management as of August 31. <\/p>\n
The petition escalates a growing battle nationwide over journalistic independence, including US President Donald Trump’s decision last week to ban CNN, MS \u200bNOW \u200band Politico from the White House. Those outlets sued Trump, \u200bsaying the ban was unconstitutional and violated \u200ctheir First Amendment rights. <\/p>\n
WHISTLEBLOWER CLAIMS <\/p>\n
Wednesday’s petition is based in part on claims by an unnamed former Times newsroom employee who worked there for a decade, and expressed concern about anti-Israel bias as early as 2019, four years before the war in Gaza began. <\/p>\n
According to the petition, the Times brushed off the whistleblower’s repeated complaints about a widespread culture of anti-Israel bias, including when a human resources representative suggested she “go find a \u200cplace whose values align with yours.” <\/p>\n
Three trustees including Florida Governor \u200bRon DeSantis and Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, both Republicans, oversee \u200bthe SBA, which serves more than 1.2 \u200bmillion members and beneficiaries. <\/p>\n
Uthmeier’s office and the National Jewish Advocacy Center, which represent \u200cthe SBA, and the National Center for Public \u200bPolicy Research, did not immediately \u200brespond to requests for comment. <\/p>\n
“The question is not whether The New York Times has the right to publish controversial journalism. Of course it does,” Steve Milloy, executive director of the think tank’s \u200bFree Enterprise Project, said in \u200ca statement. “The question is whether the company is actually following the safeguards it tells its \u200breaders and investors are essential to producing accurate and trustworthy journalism.” <\/p>\n
(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel \u200bin New YorkEditing by Nick Zieminski and Bill Berkrot) <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Jonathan Stempel NEW YORK, Sept 23 (Reuters) – Florida’s state-run public pension fund and a conservative think…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":354866,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[132267,3640,132268,132265,60,132266,9,11,10,49,51,50,29186,896],"class_list":["post-354865","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-anti-israel-bias","tag-florida","tag-florida-governor","tag-florida-retirement-system","tag-israel","tag-journalistic-standards","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-new-york-state","tag-new-york-state-headlines","tag-new-york-state-news","tag-pension-fund","tag-president-donald-trump"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354865","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=354865"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354865\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/354866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=354865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=354865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=354865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}