Emails Show New York Times Ignored Its Own Fact-Checker
Opening statements in former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin’s defamation case against the New York Times began on Thursday.
The case is over an editorial they released in 2017 entitled “America’s Lethal Politics.”
They were forced to correct the story after they tried to link Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords shooter to Palin’s Sarah PAC.
After a delay of more than a week due to the plaintiff’s having tested positive for Covid, attorneys finally gave opening statements in former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin’s defamation lawsuit against The New York Times on Thursday.
The lawsuit centers around an editorial that the Times published in June 2017, shortly after a shooting that left Republican Congressman Steve Scalise wounded.
The piece, entitled “America’s Lethal Politics” discussed the shooting that wounded Scalise, as well as the 2011 shooting that left former Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords wounded and six others dead. The editorial implied that the man who shot at Giffords and others, Jared Loughner, was inspired by a map circulated by Palin’s Sarah PAC, writing at the time that the map “targeted electoral districts that put Ms. Giffords … under stylized cross hairs.”
The paper later issued a correction and edited the piece to say that the map “showed the targeted electoral districts of Ms. Giffords and 19 other Democrats under stylized cross hairs.”
Sarah Palin’s lawyer released emails from the New York Times.
The emails show that the New York Times ignored their own fact-checkers on the editorial.
Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s lawyer on Friday released a trove of emails sent by members of The New York Times’ editorial board in the libel suit initiated by Palin against the company, the Daily Mail reported.
Palin, the 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee, filed a lawsuit four years ago arguing that the newspaper knowingly defamed her by falsely linking a Palin-affiliated political action committee to a 2011 Arizona shooting in the 2017 editorial “America’s Lethal Politics.”
The shooting, which occurred in Tucson, injured then-Rep. Gabby Giffords, D-Ariz., and killed six — including District Chief Judge John Roll and a 9-year-old girl, according to CBS’ KOLD 13.
Palin’s attorney Shane Vogt unveiled the emails at trial Friday while questioning Times journalist Elizabeth Williamson.
One of the emails showed that the New York Times fact-checker was worried that the editorial was trying to “sneak in” the link between the shooter and Palin.
