Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier has sent The New York Times a 28-page demand letter seeking six years' worth of internal company records, and he's given the newspaper's board of directors just two weeks to comply before he takes the fight to a New York courtroom. The demand, made on behalf of Florida's State Board of Administration, centers on the Times' 2017 decision to eliminate its independent public editor position and on a string of stories about the Israel-Hamas war that Uthmeier says point to inconsistent editorial standards.
According to the Miami Herald, Uthmeier is acting as a representative of Florida's pension fund, which owns roughly 160,000 shares of New York Times stock. He has requested board documents, internal reports, and any threats of lawsuits tied to the paper's coverage, warning that he will sue the Times' board in New York Supreme Court if it fails to respond. The Herald reports Uthmeier wrote that a documented pattern of standards that vary according to the politics of a story's subject creates enterprise-level risk for shareholders like Florida's pension system.
Uthmeier has argued that potential high-level failures could damage the Times' credibility and harm shareholders, and he has said the newspaper is becoming untrustworthy, per the same report. He has also said his demand letter is unrelated to editorial judgments — a claim that sits uneasily alongside the specific coverage he cites in the letter itself.
What the Letter Points To
Central to Uthmeier's complaint is the Times' 2003 creation of an independent public editor role, established in response to a plagiarism scandal, and its elimination in May 2017. As Poynter reported at the time, publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. argued that social media followers and digital readers had combined to serve as a more vigilant modern watchdog, ending a position that had existed for 14 years across six public editors.
The Herald's report also notes that Uthmeier cited a 2023 New York Times article later criticized for relying too heavily on Hamas claims, along with four other instances involving corrections or major pushback dating back to 2020. Among them is a column by Nicholas Kristof, published in May, alleging that Israeli guards and trained dogs sexually assaulted Palestinian prisoners. That column, according to background compiled by Wikipedia, prompted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar to denounce the piece as blood libel and to threaten defamation litigation against the Times. Netanyahu said he would sue for defamation, though as of the Herald's reporting no lawsuit had actually been filed, and the Times has defended the column as accurate while legal experts have questioned whether such a suit would succeed.
The Herald's report additionally notes that the National Jewish Advocacy Center sent two prior shareholder letters concerning the Times' Israel coverage, meaning the paper has now received three such letters in total on that subject.
The Times Pushes Back
A New York Times spokesperson said the company will respond more fully in due course, but also accused Uthmeier of using business concerns as a guise to curtail First Amendment protections, calling the demand letter a clear attempt to chill First Amendment-protected journalism, according to the Herald.
The legal footing for Uthmeier's threat rests on New York Business Corporation Law Section 624, which gives shareholders of record a statutory right to inspect corporate meeting minutes and records for a proper purpose reasonably related to their investment. As Freiberger Haber LLP notes, courts generally give board decisions broad deference under the business judgment rule unless bad faith or wrongful conduct can be shown — meaning corporate inspection rights under New York law don't grant unrestricted access to internal board communications or editorial deliberations.
A Pattern of State Power Aimed at Institutions
Uthmeier represents Florida's State Board of Administration, which oversees the Florida Retirement System pension fund and manages more than $270 billion in public assets across over 25 investment funds, per the Florida State Board of Administration. The board is governed by three constitutional officers — Governor Ron DeSantis, Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia, and Uthmeier himself.
The Times demand fits a broader pattern for Uthmeier, who has pursued demands, lawsuits and subpoenas across multiple sectors since becoming Florida's chief legal officer after DeSantis appointed him in 2025. He has pursued criminal investigations into Raul Castro and OpenAI, and in November 2025 he filed a state enforcement action against proxy advisory firms ISS and Glass Lewis, accusing them of using market dominance to force ESG mandates onto corporate governance. Months earlier, in July 2025, he issued subpoenas to climate-disclosure nonprofits, calling their influence an ESG grift pressuring Florida businesses.
More recently, Uthmeier opened a June 2026 investigation into CVS Health and its pharmacy benefit manager Caremark over alleged anticompetitive practices, and in July 2026 he warned the Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops that Catholic schools could lose eligibility for taxpayer-funded vouchers unless they accepted parental religious exemptions for student vaccinations — claiming the bishops have flouted their duties. Hoodline has previously reported on Uthmeier's investigative actions against FICO in a painful credit-score price probe and his role in Florida's 2026 governor's race.
Election-Year Scrutiny
The Times demand letter arrives as Uthmeier runs for a full term as attorney general in the 2026 election, a campaign already facing ethics questions. The Florida Democratic Party has pointed to Miami Herald reporting from July 2026 showing Uthmeier's office took official legal action in multiple disputes days or weeks after receiving $25,000 campaign contributions from affected donors, allegations the party has framed as corruption during the statewide race.
State financial disclosures filed in June 2026 show Uthmeier reported a net worth of approximately $1.27 million, including $68,788 earned as an adjunct law professor at the University of Florida on top of his $140,000 state salary as attorney general, according to CBS News. Hoodline has previously covered scrutiny of that teaching arrangement in a report on his University of Florida teaching gig.
Uthmeier's office did not respond to questions about whether Florida would sell its New York Times shares, the Herald reported. With the two-week deadline now running, it remains unresolved whether the Times board will comply with the records request or whether the dispute will move to a New York courtroom.
