According to a Des Moines Register article, fourteen state attorneys general have accused the New York Times, the Associated Press, CNN, and Reuters of serious crimes. The accusations appear highly dubious. The claim is that these news organizations have paid freelance reporters who have ties to Hamas and have thereby committed the crime of “material support for terrorism.”
A Fox News article corroborates the main points and adds some details. I don’t consider Fox News a very reliable source, but when a news outlet makes the people it generally supports look bad, it’s more credible, and the Fox News article has a bit more nuance than the Register article.
The Register says that these outlets have been outright accused of criminal action. “[Attorney General] Bird in a statement called it ‘illegal and shameful’ that media outlets are ‘funding friends of terrorist organizations.'” The Fox News article has more extensive quotations, but they don’t contain anything directly accusatory. For example: “If your outlet’s current hiring practices led you to give material support to terrorists, you must change these policies going forward. Otherwise, we must assume any future support of terrorist organizations by your stringers, correspondents, contractors, and similar employees is knowing behavior.” That’s still an intimidating statement, even if it’s phrased hypothetically.
The Fox article suggests that the Attorneys General, who are supposed to be highly competent lawyers, can’t tell the difference between freelancers paid by the article and people “on the payroll.” The letter refers to “contractors and similar employees,” but a contractor is not an employee. The difference between an employer-employee relationship and a buyer-seller relationship is huge.
News organizations sometimes work with and pay unsavory people to get information. If they didn’t, they’d be less able to report on crime and corruption. The small amount of “material support” a typical writer’s fee provides won’t do much for Hamas and isn’t directly connected to its murderous activities.
Another part of the AGs’ letter, as quoted by Fox News, suggests that they prefer that the news outlets have less knowledge. “The state AGs pointed to a recent letter sent by a bipartisan group of lawmakers to Reuters asking ‘how its journalist knew to be available for the October 7 attack,’ and called on the outlet to address whether it had prior knowledge of the attack or if one of the organization’s journalists had been in contact with Hamas before the attack.” If they had hints that major trouble was brewing, it may have helped them to document the atrocities. If they got these hints from people with Hamas connections, avoiding such contact would have diminished their ability to show the world what the terrorists did.
What is a “friend” of an organization? That hardly sounds like a precise legal term. Anyone tipping off news outlets about Hamas’ secret plans isn’t entirely on its side. Some of them may even hate what Hamas is doing, and they could be giving information to international news organizations at great personal risk. Others may be doing whatever it takes to survive and feed their families. Some may be selling information and handing their fees over to terrorists, but is that the likeliest scenario? Selling information about its plans would be a stupid way for Hamas to finance its actions.
My guess — and it’s only that — is that these Attorneys General don’t like it when the news media reveal government corruption and police brutality, and they’re looking for any threat to hold over the media’s heads. Having to defend itself even against a frivolous legal action would cost a news outlet time and money, and it could be easier to look the other way in exchange for not being harassed. It’s an old, well-known technique.