A New York court on Friday terminated a libel suit brought against the New York Times by former Republican candidate for US vice-president Sarah Palin, a case scrutinized by defenders of freedom of expression.
Sarah Palin, former governor of Alaska, ex-glory of the Tea Party and chosen in 2008 by the Republican presidential candidate John McCain, had been dismissed during a first trial in August 2017 by a New York judge who had ruled that the tort of defamation by the New York Times (NYT) was not established.
Sarah Palin had appealed.
It all started with a June 2017 NYT editorial denouncing an attack by a maniac who opened fire on elected Republicans playing baseball near Washington. The newspaper at the time linked another shooting, in 2011, of an elected Democrat from Arizona, Gabrielle Giffords, to an advertisement from a committee supporting Sarah Palin, in which Ms Giffords’ constituency was designated by a sign resembling a line of sight.
The next day, the NYT corrects its editorial and recognizes that there is no evidence that the shooter who seriously injured Ms. Giffords and killed six people was prompted to act by the publicity of the support committee for Ms. Palin.
During the new civil trial, which has been going on for days in Manhattan, Ms Palin said she felt “disarmed” by the 2017 editorial she said was knowingly written when the newspaper knew that there was no link between his support committee’s publicity and the shootings.
The New York Times has always pleaded good faith and her attorneys said Ms Palin’s reputation was unblemished in 2017 because “she continues to be a media phenomenon”, according to the report by the New York Times. does the Washington Post.
The case goes beyond the conflict between the conservative politician and the New York Times.
For the American media, it is emblematic of freedom of expression and that of the press to write about public figures. In a famous 1964 Supreme Court decision (“New York Times Co. v. Sullivan”) America’s highest court set the bar high for an official to win a libel suit.
It is necessary to prove a “genuine malice” of the press organ which would have published information “in the knowledge that it is false or with a total disregard for the truth”.
After the conclusion of the debates expected on Friday, the jury will retire to deliberate.
