A New York Times journalist is alleging anti-Jewish sentiment inside the newsroom of the storied media outlet, including being told to delete a message supportive of Jewish colleagues.
The allegations were publicized Wednesday in a petition by Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, who asked a New York court to let him look at the financial books and records of the board of directors that oversees the New York Times Company.
Mr. Uthmeier said Florida’s retirement system is an investor in the company and it has an interest in protecting its investment. Biased reporting can damage the company’s brand, he said.
Florida’s State Board of Administration requested access last month from the board but was rebuffed.
“The company itself tells investors that a perception of unreliable or biased journalism is a material risk to its most valuable asset. We asked a straightforward question: does the board oversee compliance with the company’s own published standards? The company refused to produce a single page,” the attorney general said in a statement.
Company spokesman Charlie Stadtlander said Florida’s petition “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,” he said.
Mr. Uthmeier’s charges of bias and errors include coverage of the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol; COVID-19 vaccinations; the Israel-Hamas conflict; and broader global terrorism issues.
The unnamed whistleblower, meanwhile, also reported a slant against Jewish reporters in the newsroom.
When she posted a message of support for Jewish colleagues, she was directed to remove it from the internal message system. But when staffers expressed pro-Palestinian sentiments, they were not directed to erase them, she claimed.
She also felt constrained in raising her complaints.
The people she did report to “turned on her,” the petition says. That included ordering her to make future complaints to the very supervisor that she was complaining about.
And at one point, when she complained about anti-Israel bias to the human resources division at the paper, she said she was told: “If you don’t like our values here, maybe you should go find a place whose values align with yours.”
She said she was also told that continued complaints were hurting the paper’s morale.
Mr. Uthmeier, in his petition, said mistakes are unavoidable at a newspaper, but he said there didn’t appear to be controls from the company to limit or ameliorate them.
In particular, he pointed to the company’s 2017 elimination of its public editor, or ombudsman.
Mr. Uthmeier, in the petition, said that when Florida first sought to see the books and records, the company’s lawyer called the demand “transparently pretextual and made in bad faith,” and “coordinated harassment.”
The Florida attorney general said the newspaper last month lost a jury trial on defamation after it reported that Kai Spears, a former University of Alabama basketball player, was present at a fatal shooting. The $9.25 million verdict was the first defamation loss in more than 50 years, the newspaper said.
Despite that, Mr. Uthmeier said the company has downplayed its exposure to defamation claims.
He said the paper only corrected the basketball player story after it was sued.
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