{"id":2649192,"date":"2026-08-25T08:00:02","date_gmt":"2026-08-25T12:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/utm_sourcerssutm_mediumrssutm_campaignnyt-legal-loss-underscores-scotuss-need-to-fix-defamation-doctrine\/"},"modified":"2026-08-25T09:08:34","modified_gmt":"2026-08-25T13:08:34","slug":"utm_sourcerssutm_mediumrssutm_campaignnyt-legal-loss-underscores-scotuss-need-to-fix-defamation-doctrine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/utm_sourcerssutm_mediumrssutm_campaignnyt-legal-loss-underscores-scotuss-need-to-fix-defamation-doctrine\/","title":{"rendered":"NYT Legal Loss Underscores The Need To Fix Defamation Doctrine"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">20<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Futm_sourcerssutm_mediumrssutm_campaignnyt-legal-loss-underscores-scotuss-need-to-fix-defamation-doctrine%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2649192&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>The article discusses the historic loss of the New York Times in a defamation lawsuit brought by former University of Alabama basketball player Kai Spears, ending its 50-year winning streak in defending such cases. Spears sued after a 2023 article falsely linked him to a criminal event, winning over $9 million in damages. This case highlights the ongoing controversy over the 1964 Supreme Court decision, New York Times v. Sullivan, which established the &#8220;actual malice&#8221; standard, providing notable legal protection to media outlets and often making libel cases arduous to win. Critics argue that this standard encourages negligence and reduces accountability, effectively shielding the media from consequences while inflicting harm on individuals like spears. Even though the Times&#8217; legal team claimed Witz reasonably verified sources, the jury found the reporting to be damaging and reckless enough to warrant damages.The ruling could signal a turning point toward revisiting Sullivan\u2019s precedent, especially as some Supreme Court justices, like Thomas and Gorsuch, have expressed skepticism about its originalist and modern applicability. The article suggests that the legal reasoning behind Sullivan may be weakening, indicating potential future reform in defamation law, which could impact how media and individuals interact in the realm of public discourse.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>All winning streaks must come to an end. The New York Times brought an over <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/08\/20\/business\/media\/new-york-times-defamation-lawsuit-alabama.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">50-year win streak<\/a> of defending defamation suits into a federal courtroom in Alabama. The underdog plaintiff was former University of Alabama basketball player Kai Spears. The Times published an article in 2023 that incorrectly said Spears was in a car with a teammate at the scene of a fatal shooting. Spears sued for libel over these \u201cuntrue statements linking him to a criminal event,\u201d and prevailed on Thursday. A jury awarded more than $9 million in damages. <\/p>\n<p>As The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/business\/2026\/08\/20\/ny-times-loses-defamation-suit-brought-by-college-basketball-player\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Washington Post put it<\/a> in its coverage of the verdict, \u201cthe New York Times is synonymous with the standard for proving defamation,\u201d referring to the 1964 Supreme Court case <em>New York Times v. Sullivan<\/em>.\u00a0The standard is the \u201cactual malice\u201d doctrine, which has become a de facto liability shield for media corporations. <\/p>\n<p>In <a href=\"https:\/\/a.co\/d\/01EQ1phB\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><em>No Liberty to Libel: The Originalist Case Against New York Times v. Sullivan<\/em><\/a>, University of Nebraska Omaha political science professor Carson Holloway shows how the <em>Sullivan<\/em> ruling created a series of two-tier systems of justice. One elevates the press by giving them an immunity no other profession has. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cJournalism [is] a privileged profession\u201d thanks to <em>Sullivan<\/em>, Holloway writes. \u201c[J]ournalists, unlike all other professionals, are sheltered from the legal consequences that ordinarily accompany negligence.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>But it\u2019s actually worse than that. The \u201cactual malice\u201d standard incentivizes negligence. \u201cActual malice\u201d requires plaintiffs to prove the media knew the defamatory statement was false or that the media published it with \u201creckless disregard\u201d for its veracity. Law professor <a href=\"https:\/\/docs.rwu.edu\/cgi\/viewcontent.cgi?article=1336&#038;context=law_fac_fs\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">David Logan identifies<\/a> \u201cthe safest legal route\u201d for the media: \u201cpublishing without verification. \u2026 [D]o little or no fact-checking, confident that the more slipshod their investigation, the less likely they are to be guilty of \u2018actual malice.\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n<p>\u201c[U]nder an \u2018actual malice\u2019 regime,\u201d Logan concludes, \u201cignorance is bliss.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Justice Neil Gorsuch put his stamp on this argument in his dissent in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.supremecourt.gov\/opinions\/20pdf\/20-1063_new_gfbi.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><em>Berisha v. Lawson<\/em><\/a>  (2021), writing, \u201c[P]ublishing without investigation, fact-checking, or editing has become the optimal legal strategy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The New York Times itself may have fallen into this trap. At trial, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/08\/20\/business\/media\/new-york-times-defamation-lawsuit-alabama.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">the Times<\/a> \u201cargued that [reporter Billy Witz] had taken reasonable steps to corroborate his source\u2019s information, including approaching Mr. Spears in person.\u201d A spokesman for the Times said Witz made an \u201chonest mistake,\u201d which the jury may have felt as a matter of common sense. <\/p>\n<p>\u201c[M]ere carelessness does not rise to the level of actual malice,\u201d Holloway wrote. But Witz may have shown just enough scrupulosity in his attempt to fact-check to bring the \u201cactual malice\u201d doctrine home to roost.<\/p>\n<p>Even if it was an honest mistake, however, that would not change the harm the Times did to Kai Spears.\u00a0Spears\u2019 suit states that he \u201cexperienced severe emotional distress as his life has been disrupted\u201d by The New York Times\u2019 libelous reporting. The article incited a mob that \u2014 as they often do \u2014 included threats against his life and \u201cmental anguish and harm\u201d that interfered with his academic and athletic efforts at the University of Alabama.<\/p>\n<p>Holloway, in <em>No Liberty to Libel<\/em>, cites a particularly noteworthy libel case: The defendant was former President Theodore Roosevelt after he left office. The judge used the analogy that if you negligently run over a child while driving your car, \u201cgood intentions will not excuse you\u201d for the harm you caused. Summing up the prevailing view, Holloway writes that libel \u201cwas no different from any other kind of wrongful injury to another person, and was not to be treated differently merely because it involved the exercise of a right to speak or publish.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Indeed, \u201cfalse statements that damage reputation do inflict a legally cognizable injury.\u201d Among the many aberrations of the <em>Sullivan<\/em> decision is that it perverts the First Amendment into a get-out-of-civil-liability-free card for the media. \u201c[N]o other constitutional protection involved a right to inflict any other kind of injury on another person.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The cases that do not go to trial and appeals data also attest to the advantages that corporate media have over individual plaintiffs. <\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/medialaw.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/2025-Bulletin-Issue-1-Trials-Damages.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Media Law Research Center\u2019s 2025 Report on Trials and Damages<\/a> shows that plaintiffs have won in 59 percent of defamation lawsuits against media from 1980\u20132024. That win rate sinks quickly on appeal, as does the effect of winning. Media defendants are successful on 66 percent of appeals after a defeat. Post-trial, over a quarter of awards are either reduced or eliminated. The final award, on average, is 15 percent of what was given at trial. The reduction can happen after a post-trial settlement, on appeal, or because some states cap awards in certain cases. Alabama is one such state, and Kai Spears\u2019 award will drop by more than $2 million just on those grounds. <\/p>\n<p>Importantly, the MLRC data is only from trials; it does not account for all the lawsuits that do not survive the media defendants\u2019 motions to dismiss or other pretrial maneuvering. Nor can it account for defamed individuals who feel they have no chance against the financial and legal power of corporate media or the weight of <em>Sullivan<\/em>. That would represent the sort of \u201cchilling effect\u201d the <em>Sullivan<\/em> court feared would paralyze newspapers from reporting on public officials if they had to respect those citizens\u2019 right to reputation.<\/p>\n<p>Despite the verdict and the end of its win streak, The New York Times is unlikely to join the calls for an end to the standard synonymous with its name. But the Times\u2019 loss in the Spears case could be another inflection point toward the end of <em>Sullivan<\/em>. <\/p>\n<p>The Supreme Court\u2019s denial of certiorari in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.supremecourt.gov\/opinions\/25pdf\/25-770_2c8f.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><em>Dershowitz v. CNN<\/em><\/a>  at the end of the last term was Justice Clarence Thomas\u2019 third opportunity and Justice Gorsuch\u2019s second to lay down their markers for reconsidering <em>Sullivan.<\/em> <\/p>\n<p>Justice Thomas\u2019 objection to <em>Sullivan<\/em> is fully originalist. He sketched his argument in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.supremecourt.gov\/opinions\/18pdf\/17-1542_ihdk.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><em>McKee v. Cosby<\/em><\/a>  (2019): \u201cWe did not begin meddling in this area until 1964, nearly 175 years after the First Amendment was ratified.\u201d As such, \u201cthere appears to be little historical evidence suggesting that the New York Times actual-malice rule flows from the original understanding of the First or Fourteenth Amendment.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>Justice Gorsuch agrees with Thomas\u2019 originalist perspective, but in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.supremecourt.gov\/opinions\/20pdf\/20-1063_new_gfbi.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><em>Berisha<\/em><\/a>, he built his own argument on how poorly <em>Sullivan<\/em> has stood the test of time, particularly in the shift to digital media. The \u201ccategories and tests this Court invented and instructed lower courts to use in this area \u2026 seem increasingly malleable and even archaic.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The <em>New York Times v. Sullivan<\/em> decision was a product of its time. The prestige and concentration of corporate media was near its peak, license was replacing liberty in many aspects of society, and the Supreme Court was routinely vying with Congress for the title of \u201clegislative branch.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>As a matter of First Amendment or libel law \u2014 or, more broadly, speech rights and the right to reputation \u2014 <em>Sullivan<\/em> was wholly unprecedented and ahistorical. <\/p>\n<p>The Spears case shows that The New York Times is not invincible when on trial for defamation. Holloway, Thomas, and Gorsuch make compelling cases that the legal reasoning behind <em>New York Times v. Sullivan<\/em> is as thin and weak as the paper it\u2019s printed on. They give hope that the injustice of its 62-year reign in law and culture might end soon. <\/p>\n<hr>\n<p>      George M. Perry is a sports performance coach, sports businessman, and writer. Before going into the sports industry, he was a submarine warfare officer in the United States Navy and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/jamie-lee-curtis-helps-give-hollyweird-its-name\/\" title=\"Jamie Lee Curtis Helps Give \u2018Hollyweird\u2019 Its Name\">briefly attended law school<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>NYT&#8217;s 50-year defamation win streak ends in Alabama<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2498,"featured_media":2649193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/New-York-Times-Building-Bottom-Portion.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[546,33651],"tags":[9142,4431,15823],"class_list":["post-2649192","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-federalist","category-the-western-journal","tag-defamation","tag-legal","tag-nyt"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/New-York-Times-Building-Bottom-Portion.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2649192","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2498"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2649192"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2649192\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2649230,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2649192\/revisions\/2649230"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2649193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2649192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2649192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2649192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}