In this politically-charged context, the term ‘deceptive’ is not susceptible to an objective meaning and is, therefore, a non-actionable opinion.
~ NYT defense in Project Veritas lawsuit
Project Veritas, a conservative guerilla watchdog, as you probably know, has won a big victory in their defamation lawsuit against the NY Times. It was not dismissed.
The lawsuit stems from two articles that included opinion in allegedly factual news articles.
The judge would not dismiss the case against the Times as they requested using one of the most ridiculous defenses yet. The Times claims it was okay to put opinion in the news articles without anything to back it up because it’s true in some cases or can’t be proven either way. They also don’t believe it has to be as factual in a politically-charged atmosphere.
That’s what the NYT passes off as news. At least, now you know.
Times reporters Maggie Astor and Tiffany Hsu described Project Veritas’ reporting as “deceptive,” “false,” and “with no verifiable evidence.” They didn’t provide the facts to back it up.
THE JUDGE RULES ON THE MERITS
“The facts submitted by Veritas could indicate more than standard, garden variety media bias and support a plausible inference of actual malice,” Supreme Court Justice Charles Wood wrote in his ruling last week. “There is a substantial basis in law to proceed to permit the plaintiff to conduct discovery and to then attempt to meet its higher standard of proving liability through clear and convincing evidence of actual malice.”
Wood elaborated, “If a writer interjects an opinion in a news article (and will seek to claim legal protections as opinion) it stands to reason that the writer should have an obligation to alert the reader, including a court that may need to determine whether it is factor opinion, that it is opinion.”
THE REMARKABLY CRAZY CASE
Byron York said the Times case was “most remarkable” and “embarrassing.”
He reported that the outlet’s defense was that Astor and Hsu, both news reporters, freely injected opinion into their reports. Even though the stories were published in the news section of the paper, the New York Times argued, Project Veritas was not entitled to sue for libel because the opinions expressed were “unverifiable.”
“Unverifiable expressions of opinion are not actionable and cannot be defamatory,” the paper argued in its motion to dismiss the case. “A defamation action must be based on statements of objective fact, not on an expression of opinion, which by definition cannot be true or false … In this politically-charged context, the term ‘deceptive’ is not susceptible to an objective meaning and is, therefore, a non-actionable opinion.”
The word “deceptive” is not subject to an objective meaning in the news???
“The use of the term ‘deceptive,'” the New York Times concluded, is “non-actionable pure opinion.”
Yikes!
In other passages of its defense, the newspaper’s lawyers argued that the use of “deceptive” and other phrases Project Veritas found objectionable were “either substantially true, do not have defamatory meaning, or are nonactionable statements of opinion.” Whatever the case, they argued — the suit should be thrown out.
In other words, it’s sort of true, and anyway, no one can prove it’s true or false, so it’s okay.
Hello, if it’s unverifiable, IT’S NOT FACT!
Basically, the Times says you shouldn’t believe anything we say in this newspaper.
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