Pilar MelendezFebruary 14, 2022, 12:38 PM·6 min readIn this article:

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• Sarah PalinAmerican politician; 9th Governor of Alaska and 2008 vice-presidential candidate
• Jed S. RakoffUnited States federal judge
• James BennetAmerican journalist

A federal judge on Monday said that he will toss a lawsuit alleging the New York Times and its former top editor defamed Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin in a 2017 editorial.

Even as jurors continue to deliberate the case—which observers feared might be a significant blow against press freedom—U.S. District Court Judge Jed Rakoff announced that he would dismiss the lawsuit filed against the paper and its former editorial page editor James Bennet, who resigned in June 2020 amid internal backlash to another column. The lawsuit alleges that the Grey Lady intentionally tried to harm Palin in a 2017 piece entitled “America’s Lethal Politics.”

“My job is to apply the law,” Rakoff said on Monday. “The law sets a very high standard for actual malice and in this case, the Court finds that standard has not been met.”

Since Palin is a public figure, Rakoff noted, the threshold to meet the burden of malice is significantly higher—and the former governor’s team did not successfully prove the standard.

Rakoff said he would still allow the jury to reach a verdict, as his decision will likely be appealed and the jury’s ruling will help inform the appeals court. The jury will continue deliberations on Tuesday.

Despite his ruling, Rakoff was critical of the Times for the column, signed by the newspaper’s editorial board, that erroneously linked Palin’s political action committee and its rhetoric to the 2011 Arizona mass shooting that killed six people and severely injured then-Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.

“This is an example of very unfortunate editorializing on the part of the Times,” the judge said, adding that he was “not at all happy to make this decision” and rule in the newspaper’s favor.

The dismissal does not exactly come as a shock—especially since Rakoff made a similar decision back in 2019 that was ultimately reversed by an appellant court. Even Palin attorney Shane Vogt admitted during opening statements last week that the suit was unlikely to succeed, thanks to decades-old protections for journalists offered in part by a precedent involving the Times: the 1964 New York Timesv. Sullivan ruling that established the standard for defaming public figures.

(editor：)