The failing New York Times just suffered a massive and historic defeat in court.
An Alabama jury on Thursday ruled that the Fake News New York Times defamed Kai Spears, a former University of Alabama Crimson Tide walk-on basketball player, and ordered the paper to pay him $9.25 million in damages, according to CBS News.
Spears was just an 18-year-old freshman walk-on when the Times swept him into a 2023 story about a fatal shooting in Tuscaloosa.
The paper’s report falsely claimed he was a passenger in a car at the scene of the January 15, 2023, killing of 23-year-old mother Jamea Harris.
Three Alabama basketball players were connected to the incident; Spears was not one of them. He was never charged with any crime and had no involvement.
After a nine-day trial in federal court in Tuscaloosa, the eight-person jury found the Times liable for defamation and false light invasion of privacy.
The original March 15, 2023 article by Times sportswriter Billy Witz relied on an anonymous source described as a “person familiar with the investigation.”
It wrongly placed Spears in the car with star player Brandon Miller when the shooting occurred. University of Alabama officials and Spears’ father immediately denied it.
The Times stuck with its story until after Spears filed suit in May 2023. Only then did the paper issue a correction admitting the passenger was actually student manager Cooper Lee, not Spears.
Spears has said the false report was “100% inaccurate” and that the writer showed “complete disregard for the truth.” He described trying to cope with being permanently linked in the public mind to a murder he had nothing to do with. His lawsuit argued the article caused severe emotional distress and mental anguish.
The Times, true to form, is spinning it as an “honest mistake.” Spokesman Charlie Stadtlander said the paper is “disappointed the jury found The Times liable for an honest mistake” and is reviewing its legal options. Jurors clearly disagreed.
This is the same New York Times that lectures the country about “disinformation” and “threats to democracy” while publishing anonymous-sourced claims that can destroy a young man’s reputation overnight.
For years The Gateway Pundit has documented the paper’s pattern of reckless, agenda-driven reporting. Now a jury of Alabama citizens has put a multi-million-dollar price tag on one of those “mistakes.”
Jim Hᴏft is the founder and editor of The Gateway Pundit, one of the top conservative news outlets in America. Jim was awarded the Reed Irvine Accuracy in Media Award in 2013 and is the proud recipient of the Breitbart Award for Excellence in Online Journalism from the Americans for Prosperity Foundation in May 2016.
You can email Jim Hᴏft here, and read more of Jim Hᴏft’s articles here.
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