The New York Times has been sued by Florida’s attorney general, who’s representing shareholders in a lawsuit accusing the company’s board of directors of failing to exercise proper oversight of editorial standards.
The petition, filed on Wednesday in New York state court, alleges that the Times‘ credibility has been undermined by anti-Israel bias in the publication’s coverage of the war in Gaza. It demands access to internal documents in an attempt to uncover the absence of journalistic standards that have been “weaponized within the company to serve the personal agendas of unchecked editors.”
“When you’re a news agency, your credibility is everything,” the attorney general, James Uthmeier, said at a press conference announcing the so-called books and records demand. “The New York Times tells its own investors that its brand and reputation are its most important assets.”
In a statement, a spokesperson for the Times said the lawsuit “has no merit and was brought for an improper purpose.”
“Although it is positioned as a corporate governance petition to inspect the company’s books and records, it is a transparent attempt to exert agenda-driven pressure against an independent media organization, level false allegations of bias and chill journalism protected by the First Amendment,” the spokesperson added.
The filing claims that the Times board doesn’t have an effective mechanism for addressing complaints about violations of the company’s standards for accuracy, sourcing, corrections and bias. It leans heavily on an unnamed employee who worked at the publication for roughly a decade and repeatedly raised concerns about compliance with editorial standards starting in 2019.
On at least 15 occasions, the whistleblower complained to human resources, among other departments, about antisemitism and bias against Israel, according to the filing.
“If you don’t like our values here, maybe you should go find a place whose values align with yours,” the newsroom employee was told by a human resources representative, claimed the lawsuit, which notes that she exhausted all available channels to report standards violations.
The shareholders point to articles about the Israel-Hamas war that were later corrected, including a headline that stated Gaza deaths surpassed “Any Arab Loss in Wars in Past 40 Years.”
The filing follows Uthmeier in August demanding board-level records about procedures relating to editorial standards compliance, corrections practice and defamation exposure, among other things, according to the lawsuit. The Times declined to produce any documents.
Last month, the Times lost a trial in which an Alabama jury found the company defamed a college basketball player by falsely stating that he was at the scene of a fatal shooting. He was awarded $9.25 million, which was later reduced to $4.75 million.