Defamation lawsuit dismissed: Palin fails against “New York Times”

The conservative US politician Palin saw her reputation damaged by an article in the “New York Times” and sued the court. A jury acquitted the newspaper of the accusation. Palin is expected to appeal.

In 2017, former US Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin sued the New York Times for damages. With an editorial published at the time, the newspaper damaged her burgeoning career as a political commentator and consultant. An argument that the jury did not want to agree with.

Earlier, the district judge in charge said that Palin could not prove that the newspaper acted maliciously, which US law requires in defamation lawsuits against public figures.

Under the headline “America’s lethal politics” – America’s lethal politics – the “New York Times” had connected a shooting spree in Arizona in 2011, in which six people were killed, with an advertising email from Palin’s support committee: A map with crosshairs on it seen over certain constituencies of Palin’s political opponents.

newspaper apologized

In the article, the New York Times also falsely claimed that the face of Democratic politician Gabby Giffords, who was seriously injured in the killing spree, was depicted in one of the crosshairs. The newspaper apologized and corrected the error.

Is Palin appealing?

Experts had expected the lawsuit to be dismissed, but assume that Palin, who was also a former governor of Alaska, will appeal – if necessary to the Supreme Court.

For a number of years, conservatives have been calling for press organs to be more easily sued for false reporting. Donald Trump was particularly emphatic about this demand during his presidency.