Florida Pension Fund Sues New York Times Over Israel Coverage

Florida’s state-run public pension fund has initiated a lawsuit against The New York Times, seeking access to internal company materials to assess whether the newspaper is promoting biased editorial coverage on Israel.

The lawsuit follows actions taken by Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, who previously filed a shareholder petition against The New York Times Company, joined by the State Board of Administration and the National Center for Public Policy Research.

Uthmeier argued that without board-level oversight, journalistic standards at The New York Times have been used in a way that threatens the company’s economic value and reputation, citing Florida’s pension fund holding over 161,000 shares for more than 1.2 million retirees.

The petition is based on a prior letter from Uthmeier to The New York Times, which demanded access to years of internal records, citing concerns about how editorial standards might affect shareholder value.

The letter referenced two articles involving the Israel-Hamas war, one of which was retracted or faced significant pushback due to reliance on Hamas claims, leading to an editor’s note acknowledging the coverage relied too heavily on such claims.

A New York Times spokesperson criticized the petition, calling it an attempt to exert agenda-driven pressure on an independent media organization and to chill protected journalism under the First Amendment.