Sarah Palin’s defamation lawsuit against the Times…
…is ongoing, and recently one of the Times’ editors made a funny (emphasis mine):
James Bennet, the former New York Times editorial page editor, said Wednesday that an error he wrote into a 2017 editorial about Sarah Palin stung particularly hard because it made the newspaper’s editorial board appear partisan…
“It’s just a terrible thing to make a mistake. I’ve edited and written hundreds of pieces on deadline, thousands. I have made very few mistakes, at least ones that I know of,” Bennet said.
“I made one that night. And it’s terrible. And it’s a mistake … that made it look like we were being partisan. It’s extremely important for the editorial board to have a reputation to call balls and strikes without partisanship,” he added.
Can he be charged with perjury for that? Yeah, that’s a joke on my part, but not entirely, because it is so blatantly obvious, and has been for decades, that the Times is nothing if not partisan.
Bennett’s statement is self-serving, of course. But does he really expect us – or a jury – to believe it? The other question, of course, is the old “knave vs. fool” one – does he actually believe it? I very very much doubt it, but then again there’s almost no limit to a “journalist’s” (or many people’s) capacity for self-delusion and the need to wrap him or herself in the mantle of virtue.
Note also the way Bennett frames this: “It’s extremely important for the editorial board to have a reputation to call balls and strikes without partisanship.” He doesn’t say, “It’s extremely important for the editorial board to call balls and strikes without partisanship;” he says it’s important to give that appearance and have that reputation.
Here’s what Palin said in today’s testimony:
“I felt powerless,” Palin told the jury while being questioned by her attorney, Kenneth Turkel.
“If I wanted to raise my head and try to get the word out, I knew I was up against Goliath,” she said, adding that she wasn’t sure of the “stones” she could use to respond.
She described the Times as the “end-all and be-all” of the media and said it was devastating that one of the largest newspaper in the country had linked her to a mass shooting that killed six people and wounded others.
Because of Sullivan, I believe Palin will have a very tough time winning this case.
In ultra-progressive NY, she has no chance. She could have brought the case anywhere the Times is sold (the entire country), but chose NY. Whatever slight chance she had under Sullivan is irrelevant, given the venue. What she and her lawyers were thinking, I have no idea.
What she and her lawyers were thinking, I have no idea.
It’s a federal district court. Perhaps she’s hoping to score on the appeal.
Art Deco, my point was, it is a jury trial. You’re not getting a jury that will give Palin a fair hearing in Manhattan. Once the jury finds against her, Sullivan is irrelevant.
NYT is as good as umpiring fairly, as Fauci is at pitching.
He made a mistake one night? Well, in his defense, that excuse seemed to work for Brock Turner.
Bennett is the Brother of one my Senators.
It will be interesting to see the jury verdict and whether it will be based on Sullivan. If so, an appeal might give the Supremes the opportunity to modify Sullivan.
Its a rigged jury in a kangaroo court.
Fauci is pitching? I could have sworn he was a catcher.
It is really high comedy. I was reviewing some of the earlier testimony where the NYT editors were making excuses about reading too fast and not catching this ‘mistake’. In your mind’s eye, you could see them on the stand, just looking down, wagging their heads sorrowfully. But the gist was, gosh it was just so important that they get that story out about the horrible shooting of those poor Republican Senators, gosh we were in just such an awful hurry to get the story out right away (more head wagging). If they could have figured out how to get an anguished widow up there, wringing her lace hanky and dabbing her nose, it woulda been perfect, I tell ya.
Has Robert Barnes said anything about the choice of venue or trial strategy? I haven’t seen anything.
New York was the scene of the crime, it’s also where the ap is based, and they spread their poison through out the 48 states and beyond, it was a calculated lie, to incite violence, against someone who had already had her church burned, her family attacked when she was out of town. there was a psycho stalker joe mcguiness who drew a map to her backdoor, it’s hard to imagine greater example of malice,
it does seem like the most evil (take fauci and cuomo) and corrupt, biden, harris, seem to prosper, popularity doesn’t prevent them from wreaking damage across the ‘fruited plain’ now the Times has made excuses from Stalin to Saddam, so that’s no surprise, but decent people they have practically no opportunity, Carter Page, Scooter Libby General Flynn are subject to defamation and possible prison,
the Court throws a bronx cheer to the former, even though they had no grounds to ever investigate him (I often used pseudonyms but to make things clear)
Imagine thinking that there are people who actually believe the NY Times’s editorial board is non-partisan. It’s an editorial board; it doesn’t have to be non-partisan. Its job is issuing opinions. But in this case, it flatly misstated facts.
James Bennet spewed “It’s just a terrible thing to make a mistake.”
Even THAT statement is a mistake. What a clown.
He never would have succeeded in the ‘real world’ job of Computer Programmer.
We made mistakes all the time. As very objectively judged by whichever compiler was in use. You fix the Syntax errors and move on. With knowledge that the logic you coded was likely error filled too.
Our self-selected “elites” have an incredibly nasty superior attitude toward us proles, don’t thry?
Tuvea:
Actually, what Bennett meant was “It’s a terrible thing to be caught in such an obvious mistake.”
If failing, Sullivan or otherwise, still, the NYT’s sins will be obvious.
Gerard Van der Leun on February 10, 2022 at 6:22 pm said:
“Fauci is pitching? I could have sworn he was a catcher.”
He is both: he pitches nonsense and catches flack.
“James Bennet spewed “It’s just a terrible thing to make a mistake.”
“Even THAT statement is a mistake.” Tuvea
No, that statement is a lie.
@ Kate > “Imagine thinking that there are people who actually believe the NY Times’s editorial board is non-partisan.”
Bernard Goldberg, a former tv news reporter, quit his job in disgust and in 2001 wrote a book about the partisan nature of all the network broadcasters, called “Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distort the News.”
In one anecdote on a discussion about the ideological positions of media outlets, he recalls asking Dan Rather about the New York Times.
“Middle of the road, Bernie,” Rather replied.
I don’t care that the Times is partisan, I only care that they pretend to objectivity.
Art Deco is right. This case always had to go to SCOTUS. Better to get the first trial result from the most blatantly biased judge and jury. I would say that this is a sound legal strategy.
If Palin loses, it’s because the deference shown media by the courts.
Publishing something the NYTimes had demonstrated in previous work to be false is proof of actual malice.
“No, we don’t read our own paper.”
furthermore, the times covered up for sheriff dupniks malfeasance, just as with chisholm and waukesha, every injury to the body politic has to be covered up,
When two main sewer media interviews with Palin came out in 2012 ish, some conservatives here were controlled by the propaganda. Turning from slightly favorable to thinking of Palin as an idiot and not good enough for McCain, the arch traitor.
This was mass formation. This was mind control and conservatives fell for it as easily as Leftists do now.
ymarsakar:
I’m not sure what you’re referring to, and the only references I could find on this blog to Palin in 2012 were a pretty frivolous but admiring post about her new eyeglasses and one about the cuteness of her grandchild. So that can’t be what you’re talking about. I wrote a more substantive post about her in 2011 (this one), but it was one in her defense. It occurs to me that perhaps you were referring to this post about an earlier interview with Gibson? Most of the people on the thread felt her performance was either adequate or pretty good, as did I. There were a few critics, but they weren’t regular commenters here and they seemed to have been people on the left to begin with.