NYT publisher calls out news outlets for ‘capitulation’ to Trump administration

New York Times publisher AG Sulzberger slammed President Donald Trump’s incursions on press freedom and chastised the news outlets he accused of caving to White House pressure in a speech Thursday night.

The Times has been embroiled in several major lawsuits against Trump and the federal government, both as a defendant and plaintiff, since the president returned to the White House last year.

“It serves no one to sidestep the reality that President Trump has used an increasingly broad suite of tools and powers to go after the press far more aggressively than his modern predecessors,” Sulzberger said at a Yale Law School event in New York City, according to a transcript of his remarks posted by the Times. He listed off the Pentagon’s loyalty policy for the press, which a federal judge ruled unconstitutional in March; Trump’s lawsuits against the Des Moines Register, The Wall Street Journal and the BBC; and CBS’s altered programming, personnel and policies under its new owner, David Ellison.

Sulzberger reprehended publications he said have settled “winnable cases” with the president, refocused their editorial pages away from White House criticism and adopted Trump’s favored language in their reporting, such as swapping out the Gulf of Mexico for the Gulf of America — all to “appease the administration or advance their business interests.”

“Such capitulation, even seemingly small instances of it, serves only to embolden the administration to keep attacking the press,” he said.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Last September, Trump sued the Times for $15 billion, accusing the 175-year-old newspaper of serving as “a fullthroated mouthpiece of the Democrat Party,” in a Florida court. A judge dismissed the suit just days later. In May, the administration sued the Times for its hiring practices, alleging the company had discriminated against a white male employee by passing him over for an editorial position.

Sulzberger also highlighted active litigation the newspaper is working through to restore its access to the Pentagon. On the heels of its March victory, the Times filed a lawsuit earlier this week challenging the Defense Department’s requirement that reporters be accompanied by escorts in the building, arguing the policy interferes with journalists’ ability to report on the U.S. military.

“A number of news organizations have risen to the occasion by pushing back on the Trump administration’s efforts to attack and punish independent journalism,” he said, shouting out the Journal, Associated Press and NPR. “That’s important because, without brave clients, good lawyers can neither assert nor defend the rights of a free and independent press.”