New York Times editor testifies in defamation suit brought by former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin

A federal jury in New York City concluded on April 22, 2025, that The New York Times did not defame former Alaska governor and vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, the second time a jury reached this verdict in Palin’s yearslong defamation case against the newspaper.

In June 2017, the Times published an editorial drawing a connection between the 2011 shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and at least 18 others and a map published by Palin’s political action committee with crosshairs over Giffords’ and other Democratic-controlled electoral districts.

The Times issued a correction a day later saying that “no such link was established” between the map and Giffords’ shooting and posted an apology on social media. But Palin sued the Times later that month, alleging that the article’s “defamatory statements” had caused ongoing “damage to her reputation, humiliation, embarrassment, mental suffering, shame and emotional distress.”

In August, then editor of the paper’s editorial page, James Bennet, testified in court that he had inserted the connection between Giffords’ shooting and the map into the editorial but that he did not intend to blame Palin for the shooting.

Southern New York District Court Judge Jed Rakoff ruled shortly thereafter in the paper’s favor, writing that Palin had not proved that the Times had acted with “actual malice,” the standard under federal law for defamation against a public figure.

Palin appealed, and in August 2019, the appeals court reversed the ruling on procedural grounds, saying that Rakoff had made his decision improperly, based on Bennet’s testimony rather than the actual pleadings.

In February 2022, a jury trial was held in the case. Before the jury finished deliberating, Rakoff told the parties that he planned to dismiss the suit but would wait to share his decision with the jury until they had issued their verdict. If his order was appealed, he explained, the jury’s separate verdict would mean that the appellate court wouldn’t have to send the case back for trial.

The jury reached a verdict that the Times had not defamed Palin. But a day later, several jurors revealed that during deliberations, they had received push notifications on their phones about Rakoff’s decision, as reported by press in the courtroom. Palin promptly appealed the dismissal of her suit once again.

In August 2024, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit ruled that Palin was due a retrial under Rakoff due to “several major issues” during the first one, including the push notifications, which the circuit judges argued had likely affected the verdict.

The judges also disputed the exclusion of certain information about Bennet, whom Palin had added to the case as a defendant, and argued that Rakoff should have let the jury decide whether Bennet had acted with actual malice.

“The jury was not required to believe Bennet’s testimony, which could be viewed as self-serving,” the judges wrote.

But in April 2025, a federal jury again ruled that the Times was not liable for defamation.

“The decision reaffirms an important tenet of American law: publishers are not liable for honest mistakes,” the Times said in a statement.

In her announcement of the ruling on X, Palin wrote, “please keep fighting for integrity in media. I’ll keep asking the press to quit making things up.”

Sarah Palin, the former Alaska governor and 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate, leaves a United States Courthouse in Manhattan during her defamation lawsuit against The New York Times on Feb. 15, 2022. REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz

On Feb. 15, 2022, the jury in Sarah Palin’s libel lawsuit against The New York Times unanimously found that the newspaper did not defame the former Alaska governor.

Palin sued in 2017 following the publication of an editorial that connected her rhetoric with the 2011 mass shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and at least 17 others. The Times quickly published a correction and issued an apology on Twitter.

After an appeal following an initial dismissal of the suit, the jury trial began in early 2022. Federal Judge Jed Rakoff announced on Feb. 14 that if the jury ruled in favor of Palin, he would set aside their verdict and dismiss the case, the Times reported. Rakoff did not alert jurors of his ruling, allowing them to come to their own verdict in order to simplify the appeals process.

After almost two days of deliberations, the jury found that Palin had failed to prove that the newspaper had acted with “actual malice.” The actual malice standard — established by a 1964 case also involving the Times — protects journalists from liability over mistakes, holding that they are only guilty of defamation if they knowingly publish false information or without regard for its veracity.

“Mistakes get made in journalism, and we take them all very seriously,” Times attorney David Axelrod said during the case. “But in this area, because of the value of the First Amendment, you cannot hold the Times liable for a mistake.”

Palin is expected to appeal the ruling, the Times reported.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals restored a defamation lawsuit against The New York Times on Aug. 6, 2019, arguing that the case had been tossed out too quickly.

The three judge panel ruled that Judge Rakoff of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York had dismissed the case without giving Palin a chance to obtain email records and other evidence that might aid her lawyers, The Times reported.

In an opinion written by Circuit Judge John Walker Jr., the Appeals Court said that the ruling was solely concerned with the process lower-court judges follow when evaluating lawsuits. “Nothing in this opinion should therefore be construed to cast doubt on the First Amendment’s crucial constitutional protections,” Walker wrote.