{"id":38297,"date":"2026-08-11T09:12:35","date_gmt":"2026-08-11T04:12:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=38297"},"modified":"2026-08-11T09:12:35","modified_gmt":"2026-08-11T04:12:35","slug":"florida-ag-demands-new-york-times-records-paper-denounces-clear-attempt-to-chill-protected-speech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=38297","title":{"rendered":"Florida AG Demands New York Times\u2019 Records, Paper Denounces \u2018Clear Attempt to Chill\u2019 Protected Speech"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_5644566\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-5644566\" class=\"wp-image-5644566 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/am11.mediaite.com\/med\/cnt\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Uthmeier.jpg\" alt=\"Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier \" width=\"1024\" height=\"685\" \/><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-5644566\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Rebecca Blackwell\/AP photo<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Florida Attorney General <strong>James Uthmeier<\/strong> sent a 28-page letter to <em>The New York Times<\/em> demanding six years&#8217; worth of records under threat of lawsuit, accusing the newspaper of damaging its credibility in a way that could harm shareholders. The paper has denounced the effort as an assault on its First Amendment-protected speech.<\/p>\n<p>Uthmeier was appointed to his position by Florida Gov. <strong>Ron DeSantis<\/strong> after the governor <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/politics\/florida-gov-ron-desantis-names-attorney-general-ashley-moody-to-fill-rubios-senate-seat\/\">appointed<\/a> his predecessor <strong>Ashley Moody<\/strong>\u00a0to the Senate after President <strong>Donald Trump<\/strong> appointed <strong>Marco Rubio<\/strong> as Secretary of State.<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.miamiherald.com\/news\/politics-government\/state-politics\/article316830087.html?tbref=hp\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>Miami Herald<\/em><\/a> report by <strong>Liv Caputo<\/strong> on Uthmeier&#8217;s letter noted that while Moody was &#8220;quiet, media adverse&#8221; during her tenure in the role, he has &#8220;transformed the\u00a0office&#8230;into an active, legally intensive position that\u2019s pursued everything from criminal investigations into Raul Castro and OpenAI to claims that Catholic bishops have flouted their duties.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>In Uthmeier&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.myfloridalegal.com\/sites\/default\/files\/nyt_letter_0.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">letter<\/a>, which was sent Monday, he cited his duties as trustee and legal counsel for Florida\u2019s State Board of Administration, overseeing the pension fund for state employees; the fund owns about 160,00o shares of stock in The New York Times Company.<\/p>\n<p>Uthmeier claims he is concerned the Times is becoming viewed as &#8220;untrustworthy,&#8221; citing several examples of instances where the <em>Times\u00a0<\/em>has issued corrections or received public criticism over its reporting \u00a0or opinion columns, accusing The Gray Lady of &#8220;repeated publication of factually unsupported content and from the perceived absence of any control and required supervision by the Company\u2019s Board of Directors (the &#8216;Board&#8217;) over the editorial standards the Company itself has adopted to prevent it.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>These issues, argued Uthmeier, could put the shares the Florida pension fund owned at risk. His office did not reply when the Herald asked if the state planned to sell its <em>Times<\/em> stock.<\/p>\n<p>The attorney general set a deadline of August 24, 14 days from the date of the letter, for the <em>Times<\/em> to respond, threatening to sue in New York courts if they do not comply.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are aware of the demand letter, which, while positioned as a request under corporate law, is a clear attempt to chill First Amendment-protected journalism,\u201d a spokesperson for the <em>Times<\/em> told the <em>Herald<\/em> via email when reached for comment. \u201cWe will respond more fully in due course.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Last week, the <em>Times<\/em> released its Q2 earnings report, touting the addition of 280,00 digital subscribers.<\/p>\n<div class=\"embed_container\" id=\"8e951508cbf4f051210993412f9a25ae\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">The <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/nytimes?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@nytimes<\/a> added added 280,000 digital subscribers in the second quarter. You can read our Q2 2026 earnings release here.<a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/JmdTKXUQy5\">https:\/\/t.co\/JmdTKXUQy5<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; NYTimes Communications (@NYTimesPR) <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/NYTimesPR\/status\/2084965062419112096?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">August 5, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<p>\u2013<\/p>\n<p>The post <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/media\/print\/florida-ag-demands-new-york-times-records-paper-denounces-clear-attempt-to-chill-protected-speech\/\">Florida AG Demands New York Times\u2019 Records, Paper Denounces \u2018Clear Attempt to Chill\u2019 Protected Speech<\/a> first appeared on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\">Mediaite<\/a>.<\/p>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Rebecca Blackwell\/AP photo Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier sent a 28-page letter to The New York Times demanding six years&#8217; worth of records under threat of lawsuit, accusing the newspaper of damaging its credibility in a way that could harm shareholders. The paper has denounced the effort as an assault on its First Amendment-protected speech&#8230;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":38298,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/am11.mediaite.com\/med\/cnt\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Uthmeier.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38297","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newsweek-trending"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38297","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=38297"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38297\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/38298"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=38297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=38297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=38297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}