New York Times Found Not Liable in Palin Defamation Case

A jury found The New York Times not liable after the news organization was sued by former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) over an editorial it published linking her to a mass shooting in 2011.
The jury’s decision Tuesday, which was unanimous, came a day after the judge in the case indicated he would dismiss the lawsuit against the newspaper, saying Palin’s attorneys produced a lack of evidence to suggest the news organization acted recklessly or knowingly published false material about her.
“I think this [was] an example of very unfortunate editorializing on the part of The Times,” U.S. District Court Judge Jed Rakoff said in court on Monday. “The law here sets a very high standard [for actual malice]. The court finds that that standard has not been met.”
Palin’s lawyers argued during the trial that The Times and James Bennet, then the editorial page editor at the newspaper, acted with “actual malice” against the former governor when they published an editorial linking her to the deadly 2011 shooting in an Arizona parking lot of then-Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.).