Former Alaska governor and Republican vice-presidential contender in 2008, Sara Palin, has been fighting the New York Times for four and a half years over an editorial she claims unfairly connected her to a tragic Arizona mass shooting in which a U.S. congressman was gravely injured, Reuters reports.
Palin is set to begin trying to persuade jurors in a federal court in Manhattan that the newspaper and its former editorial page editor James Bennet defamed her on Monday.
The trial before U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff is notable for being the first time a major media business has defended its editorial procedures in front of an American jury. Following jury selection, opening comments might happen as soon as Monday.
Palin has the heavy burden of proving “actual malice” in the publication’s editorial writing process through clear and persuasive proof.
Palin, 57, has accused the New York Times of slandering her in an op-ed piece published on June 14, 2017, that linked her political action committee (PAC) to the 2011 mass shooting in an Arizona parking lot that killed six people and injured then-Representative Gabby Giffords. Palin is seeking undisclosed monetary damages, but per court documents, she has calculated $421,000 in the reputational loss.
The editorial said that in the 2011 shooting, “the link to political provocation was evident,” and that the event occurred after Palin’s PAC published a map depicting 20 Democrats, including Giffords, as “stylized crosshairs.”
It was released following a shooting in Alexandria, Virginia, in which U.S. Representative Steve Scalise, a member of the Republican leadership in the House of Representatives, was injured.
Palin took issue with text inserted by Bennet to a draft written by a Times colleague. She said that the additional information complemented Bennet’s “preconceived narrative,” and that as an “experienced editor,” he knew and understood what he was saying.
The New York Times soon updated the editorial to deny any link between political speech and the massacre in Arizona, and Bennet has stated that he had no intention of blaming Palin.
According to Benjamin Zipursky, a Fordham University law professor, Bennet’s “instant sort of emergency mode or panic mode” upon discovering what happened clearly shows he was oblivious of any wrongdoing.
Be the first to comment