NEW YORK: A former New York Times editorial page editor was put on the defensive on Tuesday in Sarah Palin’s defamation trial against the newspaper over a 2017 editorial.
The editorial incorrectly linked the former Republican vice presidential candidate and Alaska governor to an earlier mass shooting in Arizona.
James Bennet, the former editor, testified during the trial’s fourth day that he relied upon research done by colleagues before adding language to a draft editorial that suggested Palin’s political action committee might have incited the 2011 Arizona shooting.
Six people died and former US congresswoman Gabby Giffords was seriously wounded in that shooting.
The June 14, 2017, editorial about gun control and the decline of political discourse followed a shooting at a baseball practice in Virginia in which Steve Scalize, a member of the House of Representatives’ Republican leadership, was wounded.
“I was really concerned ... that something like this didn’t seem like such a big deal anymore,” Bennet told Palin’s lawyer Shane Vogt in Manhattan federal court. “It seemed like a huge deal that several Republican congressmen had been shot, and I did want to get our readers’ attention to that.”
The trial is a test of legal protections that have long safeguarded US media from defamation claims by public figures.
Palin’s lawyers have accused the Times of trying to falsely smear her, and questioned other Times journalists about the newspaper’s writing and editing procedures.
Palin, 57, has signaled that if she lost at trial she would use an appeal to challenge the landmark 1964 US Supreme Court decision in a case called New York Times v Sullivan.
She is trying to prove that Bennet and the Times acted with “actual malice,” https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-new-york-times-palin-idUKKBN25O31B a high standard adopted in the Sullivan decision, meaning they knew the editorial was false or had reckless disregard for the truth.
Bennet is the highest-level Times journalist expected to testify.
In the disputed editorial, Bennet referenced the circulation by Palin’s political action committee before the Giffords shooting of a map putting the congresswoman and 19 other Democrats under cross hairs, and wrote that “the link to political incitement was clear.”
In a subsequent correction, the Times said there was no such link. “We got an important fact wrong,” the Times wrote on Twitter.
Bennet said he added the disputed material to a draft prepared by Elizabeth Williamson, then a member of the newspaper’s editorial board. Williamson testified last week.
Bennet also said he had no independent recollection of whether he had read some background material that colleagues had sent him prior to publication that might have alerted him to the error.
“It’s so hard, Mr. Vogt, for me to tell now what I knew at the time, what I’ve learned since, and I’m sorry, I’ve kind of mixed that stuff up,” Bennet said.
Bennet has said he intended no harm to Palin, and that he thought the editorial was correct when published.
Linda Cohn, a retired Times editor, testified earlier on Tuesday that she never heard Bennet discussing Palin negatively, and that he appeared surprised to learn people were upset with the editorial’s wording.
“There was a general sense of ‘oh no,’” she said.
Palin was the Republican 2008 vice presidential nominee and served as Alaska governor from 2006 to 2009.
New York Times editor on defensive at Sarah Palin defamation trial
https://arab.news/5s38z
New York Times editor on defensive at Sarah Palin defamation trial
- James Bennet, the former editor, testified during the trial's fourth day that he relied upon research done by colleagues
- "I was really concerned ... that something like this didn't seem like such a big deal any more," Bennet told Palin's lawyer Shane Vogt in Manhattan federal court
Lebanon’s official media scale back Hezbollah coverage after Cabinet ban
- Information Minister Paul Morcos instructs outlets to comply with government decision
- Journalists, social media urged to avoid content that could provoke hate speech, incitement
BEIRUT: Lebanon has begun implementing a Cabinet decision taken earlier this month to ban Hezbollah’s security and military activities by scaling back coverage of the group on official media platforms.
The measure, which was described in political circles as a significant and bold step, came after decades during which news about the party and the speeches of its leaders were published verbatim and broadcast live through official media outlets, like the state-run National News Agency, TV station Tele Liban and Radio Lebanon.
“No one is imposing censorship,” an official source told Arab News.
“Rather, there is a commitment to the decisions of the state. It is no longer possible for a speech that attacks the Lebanese government and the state to be published through its official media outlets.”
Information Minister Paul Morcos issued a circular instructing directors of official media outlets to comply with the government’s decision to ban the broadcast of speeches or statements by Hezbollah Secretary-General Sheikh Naim Qassem and statements issued by the group’s armed wing, particularly when they contain criticism of the state.
Morcos also ordered that Hezbollah statements be handled in the same manner as those issued by other political parties, meaning they should not be published verbatim. He further instructed media outlets to avoid using the term “Islamic resistance,” except when it appears directly within Hezbollah statements.
The first manifestations of the decision were Tele Liban’s abstention from live broadcasting a speech by Qassem and a statement made on Tuesday by lawmaker Mohammed Raad, who heads the Hezbollah parliamentary bloc.
The group’s supporters described the move as an attempt “to restrict the resistance, Hezbollah and its leadership in the official media.”
Some argued on social media that preventing the use of terms like “resistance” or “holy warriors (Mujahedin)” and replacing them with expressions such as “Hezbollah” and “fighters” was “aimed at brainwashing and stripping the party of its resistance identity.”
During a Cabinet session on Thursday, Morcos raised the issue of content circulating on social media that incites murder and sectarian strife. This comes against the backdrop of the war that Hezbollah waged from Lebanon against Israel on March 2, without state approval, which led to a sharp division in Lebanese public opinion.
Morcos, who is also Cabinet spokesperson, said after the session that what was being published “exceeds the bounds of freedom of opinion, the press and expression.”
Prime Minister Nawaf Salam considered it to fall under the penal code, specifically regarding crimes that harm national unity, he said, and that “we are against strife in all its forms.”
Morcos also urged journalists, influencers and social media users to remain aware of the sensitivity of the current situation and to avoid content that could provoke strife, hate speech or incitement.
He acknowledged, however, that, according to a legal study, he has no authority over social media, even on media-related matters.
“The Ministry of Information does not exercise a guardianship role and lacks judicial police powers,” he said.
“These authorities rest with the public prosecution offices, which are overseen by the minister of justice and fall within the domain of criminal law and criminal prosecution.”
The ban was agreed during a Cabinet session on March 2, after Hezbollah launched six rockets from Lebanese territory toward northern Israel, the first such attack since the November 2024 ceasefire, prompting retaliatory strikes.
The Cabinet reaffirmed that “the decision of war and peace rests exclusively with the Lebanese state and its constitutional institutions,” and called on Hezbollah to hand over its weapons to the state while limiting its role to political activity within the legal and constitutional framework.
