United States of America

Florida Attorney General Demands New York Times Records

Is Florida holding the NYT accountable as shareholders or weaponizing pension funds to silence a free press?

Published 1 hour ago

Florida Attorney General Demands New York Times Records

Story

Above: The New York Times building in New York City, U.S., on May 6. Image credit: Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images

The Spin

Right narrative

The NYT's board has no oversight mechanism for the editorial risks it admits could tank its own business. This, given its dubious reporting on the Israel-Hamas war, is a damning failure of corporate governance — one that Florida's pension fund, as a shareholder, has every legal right to demand answers about whether the board is asleep at the wheel while the paper racks up corrections and defamation threats.

Office of the Attorney General for the state of Florida

James Uthmeier on X

Left narrative

Uthmeier is using retirees' pension holdings as a political weapon to intimidate a news organization whose coverage he dislikes in a vulgar display of government pressure on the press. The NYT was right to call it exactly what it is: an attempt to chill First Amendment-protected journalism. This move fits a pattern of using state power to punish companies for content, and no shareholder fig leaf changes that.

Politico