Newsday suing Nassau County, Blakeman over alleged First Amendment violations

Newsday is filing a lawsuit against Nassau County government for allegedly violating the media company’s First Amendment rights by removing its designation as the county’s official newspaper.

The news organization alleges that stripping Newsday of its county newspaper status was in retaliation for Newsday publishing news and editorials that county officials considered unfavorable, according to a notice of claim and complaint made public on Tuesday.

“As Long Island’s most trusted news source, Newsday needs to ensure that all media outlets have equal access to all information essential to our audiences,” Newsday Publisher Debby Krenek said in a statement. “The residents of Nassau County have the right to transparency from their government officials and taxpayer dollars should never be used to intimidate the press and limit information the public needs.”

The complaint, to be filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, names Nassau County, County Executive Bruce Blakeman and the county legislature as defendants. The complaint asks a federal judge to order Nassau to reinstate Newsday as the official newspaper of the county and that future designations be based “only upon articulable and content-and viewpoint-neutral criteria.”

Newsday also requests that the December designation of the New York Post as the county’s official newspaper be struck down because the legislature did not publicize the text of the resolution before voting, which is a violation of the state Open Meetings Act, the complaint states.

Newsday is seeking compensatory damages for lost revenue from the county’s legal notices of proposed county actions, which had been published in Newsday for decades when it was the county’s official newspaper. Nassau spent about $200,000 on the notices in both 2023 and last year, according to the complaint.

Blakeman spokesman Christopher Boyle said in a statement on Tuesday, “The Blakeman administration regularly communicates with all members of the media including Newsday. This lawsuit is foolish, frivolous and completely devoid of merit."

A spokeswoman for the legislature's Republican majority didn't immediately respond to email and voicemail messages seeking comment.

The complaint alleges that Nassau officials began to increasingly express frustration around March that Newsday was not, in their view, providing appropriate coverage of Blakeman’s efforts to ban transgender women and girls from competing in sporting events with cisgender women and girls at county facilities.

Blakeman has made his opposition to transgender athletes participating in county-owned buildings a focus of his administration, bringing in Olympian Caitlyn Jenner to lobby for the ban. Jenner is transgender and a reality television star. The effort drew strong opposition from many in the LGBTQ community, who felt it was discriminatory and outside the purview of county business, Newsday has previously reported.

Newsday has covered several, but not all, meetings, developments and events Blakeman held to advocate for his transgender ban, which is now tied up in the courts.

Blakeman and other county officials “repeatedly made known their displeasure with Newsday’s editorial content — about this and other topics,” and started blacklisting the media company by blocking its reporters from press advisories, ignoring their inquiries and denying them access to public information, according to the complaint.

Requests for information and comment about myriad topics affecting Nassau residents were “purposefully ignored,” by the county, including the mask ban, a proposed casino at Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum, a new armed deputy force, the economic impact of the cricket World Cup in Eisenhower Park and what the county charges for processing online payments of traffic tickets, the complaint states.

When those efforts failed to deter Newsday, the complaint alleges that Nassau government targeted the company financially by revoking its status as the county’s official newspaper and cutting Newsday off from the publication of legal notices about proposed county actions.

Newsday accuses the county legislature of violating state law in June by amending the Nassau County Charter to give Blakeman the authority to select an official county newspaper and then have lawmakers ratify his decision. Such a change to the charter must be put to a public referendum because it alters the powers of elected officials, based on state law, according to the complaint.

The legislature’s Democratic minority voted against amending the charter and designating the New York Post as the county’s official newspaper.

Post Editor-in-Chief Keith Poole thanked county officials for designating the Post as the county’s official newspaper at a December news conference in Mineola with Blakeman.

“The Post has long covered the major stories on Long Island, but this gives us the opportunity to go much deeper on local news, sports and politics, and grow our relationship with our readers here,” he said.

However, Newsday covers Nassau more extensively than the Post, publishing 1,615 articles last year compared to the Post's 155. Newsday’s weekly total print and digital readership in Nassau also surpasses that of the Post — with 440,434 Nassau readers from February to October compared with 227,201 for the Post in the same time period, the complaint states.

Representatives of the Post and its parent, News Corp., didn't immediately respond to requests for comment on Tuesday.

By James T. Madore

james.madore@newsday.comJamesTMadore

James T. Madore writes about Long Island business news including the economy, development, and the relationship between government and business. He previously served as Albany bureau chief.