On Tuesday a federal jury ruled against Sarah Palin, former Alaska governor and Republican vice presidential candidate, in her defamation lawsuit filed years ago against the New York Times. Palin took the historic U.S. newspaper to court after the paper published an editorial erroneously insinuating that she had instigated a shooting that occurred years earlier in Arizona.
The Times acknowledged its mistake and apologized to GOP politicians; however, this was not enough to avoid the legal dispute. Back in 2022, a judge ruled in favor of the New York newspaper. But last year, a federal appeals court invalidated those decisions, setting the stage for the retrial that occurred this month.
At the moment, it is unclear whether the verdict will mark the end of an eight-year lawsuit or whether Palin’s lawyers will appeal again. “We haven’t talked about what we’ll do next legally,” Palin herself said once she left the courtroom.
The decision reaffirms an important tenet of American law: “Publishers are not liable for honest mistakes”, Danielle Rhoades Ha, a Times spokeswoman, reiterated. The Times article, dating back to 2017, mistakenly associated a 2011 mass shooting in Tucson, Arizona, in which Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was seriously injured, with a map that Ms. Palin’s political action committee created by placing a rifle sight on Democratic congressional districts, including Giffords’ own.
During the trial, Ms. Palin told the jury that the editorial had “taken the edge off” her, damaging her reputation. She further explained that the Times did not personally apologize to her and that the published correction was insufficient because it did not name her or her political action committee.
For his part, however, James Bennet, who was in charge of the Times’ opinion section at the time, testified that he was responsible for inserting the erroneous statement in the editorial while rewriting a draft. He said he made a mistake and acted quickly to correct it when it was pointed out to him.
Lawyers for the Times corroborated that Mr. Bennett had made an honest mistake and that it was promptly corrected less than 24 hours later.
The newspaper’s victory in court comes at a fraught time for the U.S. media which is grappling with continued attacks from the Trump administration which aims to control its content and shape its reporting to conform with his ideological stances.
