Newsday sues Nassau County, Bruce Blakeman for alleged First Amendment violations
Newsday filed the lawsuit against Nassau County on Thursday. Credit: Chris Ware
Newsday filed a lawsuit on Thursday against Nassau County government for allegedly violating the media company’s First Amendment rights by removing its designation as the county’s official newspaper.
Newsday had announced in January its intention to sue the county, the county legislature and County Executive Bruce Blakeman for stripping the publication of its county newspaper status, allegedly in retaliation for news stories and editorials that county officials considered unfavorable, according to the 19-page complaint.
The suit, filed in federal court in Central Islip, asks a judge to order Nassau to reinstate Newsday as the official paper of the county and to rule that future designations must be decided "only upon articulable and content-and-viewpoint-neutral criteria."
Blakeman and the legislature made the New York Post the county's official newspaper, which means all of the county's legal notices must be published there.
Newsday is seeking monetary damages for lost revenue from the legal notices, which had been published in Newsday for decades. Nassau spent about $200,000 annually on the notices last year and in 2023, according to the complaint.
Blakeman complained about Newsday's coverage in a statement on Thursday night and said that the suit was a waste of taxpayer money.
When reached for comment, Newsday spokesperson Tara Rogers stated, "The lawsuit speaks for itself."
Spokespersons for the legislature’s Republican majority and the Post didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
The complaint alleges that Nassau officials, starting around March 2024, expressed growing frustration over Newsday not providing what they regarded as appropriate coverage of Blakeman’s efforts to ban transgender women and girls from participating in athletic events with cisgender women and girls at county facilities.
Blakeman and other county officials "repeatedly made known their displeasure with Newsday’s editorial content — about this and other topics," and started to blacklist the media company by blocking its reporters from press advisories, ignoring their inquiries and denying them access to public information, according to the complaint.
When these efforts failed to influence Newsday, the complaint alleges that Nassau officials targeted the company financially by revoking its status as the county's official newspaper and cutting Newsday off from the publication of legal notices.
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.
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