NYT Investigates Columnist Who Made Israeli Rape Dog Claims For Undisclosed Donor Ties

The New York Times is investigating its controversial columnist Nicholas Kristof for his failure to disclose existing donor relationships, the newspaper has announced.

“Previous political donations made by some people Nick Kristof mentioned in his columns should have been made more clear to readers,” Times spokesman Charlie Stadtlander wrote in an email to Semafor News. “Editors from Times Opinion are reviewing these articles to determine further clarifications for readers.”

On numerous occasions, Kristof wrote columns that appear to have promoted philanthropists such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation but failed to mention that those same philanthropists he promoted donated large sums of money to the columnist’s failed gubernatorial campaign in Oregon.

Kristof, who is responsible for placing The New York Times in a defamation lawsuit from the state of Israel over his published claims accusing Israel of training dolphins to spy and dogs to rape Palestinian prisoners, wrote favorably about Bill Gates and his nonprofit in a series of pieces between 2022 and 2025.

In one case, he touted Gates’ plan for fighting global hunger. In others, he cited statistics from Gates’ foundation, as well as his predictions on gene editing and his recommendation of an author. Kristof made no mention of the fact that Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates had donated a combined $100,000 to his campaign for governor.

When Kristof mentioned Council on Foreign Relations member Deborah Fikes in a 2024 column about North Korea, he did not say that she had donated $10,000 to his political campaign.

In a 2023 column about India’s economic growth, Kristof quoted McKinsey Global Managing Partner Bob Sternfels without noting that Sternfels and his wife donated a combined $5,000 to his campaign.

And when he quoted the late Harvard professor Joseph Nye in two separate columns, in 2023 and 2024, he failed to note that Nye had donated $1,000.

According to the Society of Professional Journalists, an organization that has been dedicated to “improving and perfecting journalism” for over 100 years, journalists are highly discouraged from promoting their political affiliations.

Journalists must “deny favored treatment to advertisers, donors or any other special interests, and resist internal and external pressure to influence coverage,” the code reads.

The code then suggests that journalists should “avoid conflicts of interest, real or perceived. Disclose unavoidable conflicts,” while refusing “gifts, favors, fees, free travel and special treatment, and avoid political and other outside activities that may compromise integrity or impartiality, or may damage credibility.”

“Be wary of sources offering information for favors or money; do not pay for access to news. Identify content provided by outside sources, whether paid or not,” the code adds.