Sarah Palin’s defamation lawsuit against the New York Times failed the actual malice test as federal judge Jed Rakoff dismissed it with the comment, “Responsible journals will promptly correct their errors; others will not. But if political journalism is to achieve its constitutionally endorsed role of challenging the powerful, legal redress by a public figure must be limited to those cases where the public figure has a plausible factual basis for complaining that the mistake was made maliciously, that is, with knowledge it was false or with reckless disregard of its falsity. (CNN, August 29, 2017, by Tom Kludt)
The Times admitted they had erred in reporting that the man who shot former Arizona Congresswoman Gabby Giffords had been inspired by an ad from Palin’s PAC that put crosshairs over contested congressional districts of Democrats including Gifford’s. There was no evidence the man had seen the ad. The Times ran a correction the next day. (The Hill, August 29, 2017, by Jacqueline Thomsen)