Shareholders sue New York Times for failing obligation to investors to report the truth: lawsuit

The suit, filed in the New York County Supreme Court, pertains largely to the outlet’s coverage of the Israel-Hamas war. The suit was first reported by the Free Press.

It states that the company “has told its investors that a perception of unreliable or biased reporting could damage the asset on which its business depends, and that litigation arising from its reporting is a risk to the business in its own right.”

The suit says that the company’s board, in order to protect its investors, must adopt “trustworthy internal journalistic standards and controls” and monitor whether those standards are being complied with “so that they do not risk shareholder value.”

The shareholders allege that a series of errors in articles and disputed reporting have raised questions about the New York Times’ board’s oversight of its reporting. The shareholders seek to be able to inspect “corporate books and records.” The New York Times has rejected the petitioners’ demands for the records twice.

The suit cites allegations from a whistleblower, who is a former Times employee who is Jewish and was on the paper’s video desk for nearly a decade. The whistleblower had raised concerns about antisemitism and anti-Israel bias that she saw come across her desk at least 15 times between 2019 and March of 2026, when she left the company.

The whistleblower told the Free Press, “The public deserves a better picture of how the Times manufactures the news when Jews or Israel are involved.” The lawsuit states that the whistleblower was told by human resources when she reported instances of anti-Israel bias, “if you don’t like our values here, maybe you should go find a place whose values align with yours.”