Palin v. New York Times Co.

Sarah Palin (plaintiff), a Republican politician, published a map in March 2010 displaying crosshairs over Democratic congressional districts. In January 2011, a gunman killed six people and injured others, including a democratic congresswoman, at a constituent event. Although speculation arose, no evidence linked Palin’s map to the shooting. In June 2017, following a separate congressionally targeted shooting, The New York Times (the Times) (defendant) published an editorial comparing the two attacks and asserting a link between the 2011 shooting and Palin’s map. Palin sued the Times and its opinion editor, James Bennet (defendant), for defamation. As a public figure, Palin was required to prove that the challenged statements were published with actual malice, i.e., knowledge of falsity or reckless disregard for the truth. To do so, Palin sought to introduce articles published by The Daily Dish and The Wire, outlets affiliated with The Atlantic, where Bennet served as editor-in-chief in 2011, disputing any connection between Palin’s map and the shooting. Bennet testified that he regularly engaged with those outlets, that The Daily Dish’s articles appeared on The Atlantic’s website during his tenure, that he subscribed to The Wire’s email list, and that he might have read the articles. There was also evidence that Bennet had a good memory, regarded the shooting as “a big story,” and was interested in gun control. Nevertheless, during pretrial proceedings, the district court excluded the articles as irrelevant, concluding that Palin failed to establish that Bennet had read and remembered them. The district court later dismissed Palin’s claim. Palin appealed, challenging the articles’ exclusion.