Sarah Palin’s Libel Suit Against the Times Comes at a PoliticalWorrying Hour

By Chandler Geumbee Ahn ‘25 ARTLESS STUDENT WRITER

Works Cited https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/ gadgets-news/2023-to-see-morecyberattacks-as-compared-to-2022report/articleshow/97885876.cms?from=mdr https://www.securitymagazine. com/articles/98810-global-cyberattacks-increased-38-in-2022 https://www.embroker.com/blog/cyber-attack-statistics/#:~:text=Transferring%20data%20between%20 business%20and,increases%20 vulnerability%20to%20cyber%20attacks. https://www.wired.co.uk/article/ hacktivism-russia-ukraine-ddos https://www.wired.com/2016/01/ hacker-lexicon-what-are-dos-andddos-attacks/ https://www.euronews.com/ next/2022/08/21/i-went-to-prison-for-the-77m-talktalk-hacking-icould-be-sent-back-for-ordering-amcdonald#:~:text=As%20one%20 of%20Britain’s%20most,data%20 of%20over%20150%2C000%20customers.

It’s rare that an institution like the New York Times is sued—for libel, no less, a charge that the Times, in the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark 1964 New York Times Co. v. Sullivan decision, helped make significantly more difficult for politicians to pursue. Sarah Palin, former governor of Alaska and the first-ever female nominee to the GOP’s vice presidential ticket, appeared before the U.S. District Court in Manhattan on 2022 February 3rd for the trial of her defamation suit against the Times (Ellison et al., 2022). Palin sued the paper for defamation after a 2017 Times editorial incorrectly linked a graphic produced by Palin’s political action committee to a 2011 mass shooting in Tucson, Arizona. The trial was beginning for the second time after its delay due to Palin’s positive test for the coronavirus. “She is, of course, unvaccinated,” Judge Jed Rakoff told the courtroom (Bekiempis, 2022). Palin is a vocal opponent of vaccine mandates, and was spotted dining out with her rumoured partner, former New York Rangers ice hockey star Ron Duguay, at a restaurant on Manhattan’s Upper East Side after she tested positive for the virus (Ellison et al., 2022). Judge Rakoff, expressing “skepticism about the legal merits” of the case, threw out her suit when it was first filed in 2017 (Gerstein, 2022). A federal appeals court, however, reinstated it two years later. But politicians sue, threaten to sue, and fail to sue the media all the time. So why has Sarah Palin,