Shareholders Sue New York Times Over Editorial Oversight Records

23 Sep 2026 Shareholders Sue New York Times Over Editorial Oversight Records

Washington, D.C. - The National Center for Public Policy Research and the State Board of Administration of Florida (SBA), on behalf of the Florida Retirement System Trust Fund (FRSTF), have filed a lawsuit against The New York Times Company seeking corporate records concerning the company's oversight of its journalistic standards and the systems it says are designed to ensure accurate and trustworthy reporting.

The lawsuit, State Board of Administration of Florida, on behalf of the Florida Retirement System Trust Fund, and National Center for Public Policy Research v. The New York Times Company, follows months of shareholder efforts to obtain records concerning the Times' governance and oversight of its editorial standards.

The National Center first demanded access to the Times' corporate records in June after a controversial opinion column by Nicholas Kristof raised serious questions about the newspaper's fact-checking and source-verification practices. The shareholders subsequently narrowed their request to corporate governance materials rather than editorial content.

The May 11 Kristof column, "The Silence That Meets the Rape of Palestinians," alleged that Israeli prison guards had sexually abused Palestinian detainees, including training dogs to commit rape, and that such conduct was systematic. The Times defended the column as extensively fact-checked. Yet former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, whom Kristof quoted by name, publicly said that he did not validate the allegations and that the placement of his quote "misrepresents my views." The Times' own senior editors subsequently gave conflicting accounts of the review process.

"News requires fact-checking. Extraordinary news requires extraordinary fact-checking," said Steve Milloy, executive director of the National Center's Free Enterprise Project. "The Times allowed Kristof to publish extraordinary allegations without demonstrating that its own fact-checking standards were followed. When a newspaper's credibility is one of its most valuable assets, shareholders have a right to know whether the company has meaningful systems in place to protect it."

The shareholders' concerns extend beyond a single article. Their investigation has examined evidence of repeated errors and corrections, internal complaints about editorial standards, and concerns raised through the Times' own internal channels. The shareholders are seeking corporate records that can shed light on how the company's Board and management oversee these systems and respond when concerns about accuracy and editorial standards are raised.

"The question is not whether The New York Times has the right to publish controversial journalism," Milloy said. "Of course it does. The question is whether the company is actually following the safeguards it tells its readers and investors are essential to producing accurate and trustworthy journalism. If those safeguards exist, the Times should be able to show its shareholders that they work."

The National Center has been a Times shareholder continuously since 2017 and has used its shareholder position to press publicly traded companies for greater transparency and accountability.

After The New York Times Company declined to provide the requested records, the National Center and SBA filed suit in New York seeking an order compelling the company to produce the corporate records sought by the shareholders.

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