Jury rules N.Y. Times defamed Bama hoops player — SkimNews
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- Kai Spears won a $9.25 million defamation verdict against The New York Times on Thursday after a nine-day trial in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama, with his attorney Matt Glover saying the decision will "improve journalism throughout the country."
- The New York Times reported in 2023, citing an anonymous source, that Spears was a passenger in a car involved in the January 2023 shooting that killed a 23-year-old mother; the paper issued an editor's note acknowledging the error days later but called the verdict "contrary to law."
- Times spokesperson Charlie Stadtlander said the newspaper was "disappointed" and was reviewing its legal options, calling the reporting "an honest mistake" rather than a defamatory act.
- Three other Alabama basketball players were present at the shooting, but the lawsuit noted that only Spears was wrongly named in the article, which he said "forever linked him with a murder" and caused emotional distress.
- The Times reported on the verdict that it had not lost a defamation lawsuit brought in the United States over one of its articles in more than 50 years.
Why it matters: The New York Times itself noted it had not lost a U.S. defamation case over its own reporting in more than 50 years — this verdict breaks that streak and could force a costly appeal or settlement, while putting media lawyers on alert about the legal exposure of relying on anonymous sources for criminal-identification reporting.
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