Sarah Palin, the former Alaska governor and 2008 Republican U.S. vice presidential candidate, went to trial against the New York Times on Thursday, in a highly anticipated defamation case that could test long-standing protections for American news media.
Reuters reports Palin, 57, is suing over a 2017 editorial that incorrectly linked her political rhetoric to a 2011 Arizona mass shooting that left six dead and U.S. Representative Gabby Giffords seriously wounded, and which the newspaper later corrected.
In his opening statement, Palin's lawyer Shane Vogt told jurors that his client was fighting an "uphill battle" to show the editorial reflected the Times' knowledge it was false and its "history of bias" toward her and other Republicans.
The Times' lawyer, David Axelrod, countered in his opening statement that the editorial sought to hold both Democrats and Republicans responsible for inflammatory rhetoric, and said the newspaper acted "as quickly as possible" to correct its mistake.
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| NY Post graphic 2/4/22 |
To win, Palin must offer clear and convincing evidence the Times acted with "actual malice," meaning it knew the editorial was false or had reckless disregard for the truth. She is seeking unspecified damages for alleged harm to her reputation.
Two conservative U.S. Supreme Court justices and some legal scholars have suggested revisiting the Sullivan decision, and Palin has signaled she would challenge it on appeal if she lost.
"What am I trying to accomplish? Justice, for people who expect the truth in the media," Palin told reporters as she entered the courthouse.
Headlined "America's Lethal Politics," the disputed June 14, 2017, editorial was published after a shooting in Alexandria, Virginia in which Steve Scalise, a member of the House of Representatives' Republican leadership, was wounded.
The editorial questioned whether the shooting reflected how vicious American politics had become.
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