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The state of Florida filed a shareholder lawsuit Wednesday against The New York Times in a Manhattan state trial court, arguing its coverage of the Israel-Hamas conflict would harm shareholder value for the state’s agencies and public sector retirees.

The named plaintiff is the Florida State Board of Administration (SBA), which oversees more than $276 billion in assets for state and local government entities. Along with the National Center for Public Policy Research, the suit asks a judge to force the Times’ board of directors to hand over internal records pertaining to the paper’s coverage of the events.

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier said during a press conference in Miami-Dade County that the state was not suing the Times because of a specific news article or editorial discretion, but over corporate governance, saying that as a publicly traded company the newspaper holds “legal responsibilities and duties to your shareholders.”

The Florida SBA invests and administers its assets and owes fiduciary duties to more than 1.2 million members and beneficiaries. It holds 161, 375 shares of Times stock.

A spokesperson for the paper said it would fight the request for internal records.

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“This lawsuit has no merit and was brought for an improper purpose,” said Charlie Stadtlander, executive director for media relations and communications for the Times.

“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........

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