Former U. Alabama Athlete Wins $9.25 Million Against NY Times in Defamation Suit
“a reporter erroneously said a University of Alabama basketball player was at the scene of a deadly shooting”
Isn’t it strange how things like this keep happening to liberal media outlets?
The College Fix reports:
Former U. Alabama athlete wins $9.25 million defamation suit against NY Times
A jury ordered the New York Times to pay out millions of dollars in damages after a reporter erroneously said a University of Alabama basketball player was at the scene of a deadly shooting.
“The eight-person jury awarded $9.25 million in damages, after a nine-day trial in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama,” the NY Times itself reported on Aug. 20.
The newspaper reported:
Kai Spears, who played for the University of Alabama men’s basketball team, sued The Times in 2023, accusing it of libel and “false light” invasion of privacy. He claimed the article, which mistakenly reported he was a passenger in a car at the scene of the shooting, had caused him emotional distress and forever linked him with a murder. Three other basketball players from the school were present at the shooting, which killed a 23-year-old mother.
During the trial, the author of the piece, Billy Witz, said he was told a “white guy” had been at the scene by an unnamed source. The “white guy” was Cooper Lee, a manager for the team, as Fox News noted. Lee was a passenger in the car but played no role in the shooting.
In its own report, the NY Times reporter argued that the paper had amended the story after the filing of the defamation lawsuit. For an unknown reason, the newspaper also mentioned President Trump was suing it.
A cap on damages means the $9.25 million amount could be reduced, the Times reported.
The newspaper also pointed out this is the first time it lost a defamation case in 50 years.
But RealClearInvestigations writer Mark Hemingway said further context is needed for this claim.
“The only reason the NYT hasn’t lost a defamation suit isn’t because they didn’t deserve to — in 2020-21 they twice successfully defended themselves in defamation suits by arguing news reporters can put opinion in news stories without labeling it as opinion,” he wrote on X.
“And judges bought it,” he wrote.
The only reason the NYT hasn’t lost a defamation suit isn’t because they didn’t deserve to — in 2020-21 they twice successfully defended themselves in defamation suits by arguing news reporters can put opinion in news stories without labeling it as opinion. And judges bought it!… https://t.co/FRfXA0zQ3K
— Mark Hemingway (@Heminator) August 21, 2026
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
“During the trial, the author of the piece, Billy Witz, said he was told a “white guy” had been at the scene by an unnamed source.”
The unnamed source was an unimpeachable witness — an old Indian dude chanting and banging a drum.
It doesn’t matter who the source was, since we know for a fact that the source was telling the truth. There was a white guy there. Just not the plaintiff. That was a wild assumption by the reporter, and not attributable to the source.
As far as I know that is generally correct. Whether a statement is an opinion or a factual assertion is determined by its nature, not by how it’s labeled. A statement that’s inherently an opinion doesn’t become a factual statement just because it appears in a news story and isn’t explicitly labeled as opinion.
Likewise a factual statement doesn’t become an opinion just because it appears in an opinion column. Writers can and have been successfully sued for statements in opinion columns, if those statements made factual assertions, or implied unstated facts.
An “opinion” that implies that it is supported by a fact is not protected by the opinion exception if the s0-called fact is false and defamatory. Thus, the statement “He is a fatso,” is a protected opinion, while “He is morbidly obese,” is not necessarily protected because the latter implies that there are factual specifics that place the person’s weight in a medically defined category.
Leave a Comment