An assertion in a New York Times editorial that linked a 2011 mass shooting to a map created by Sarah Palin’s political action committee was an “honest mistake” and not a part of a conspiracy by the newspaper to smear the former Alaska governor, a lawyer for the Gray Lady said Friday.
Attorney David Axelrod made the argument in his closing statement to the Manhattan federal jury that will soon decide if the Times defamed Palin in the 2017 editorial, “America’s Lethal Politics.”
“It’s about an honest mistake,” Axelrod told the nine-person jury. “It wasn’t a political hit piece.”
He then walked the panel through a timeline of the day the editorial was published, arguing that former editorial page editor James Bennet and other Times employees who worked on the piece were rushed to write and edit it before a deadline that night.
Axelrod highlighted mistakes made throughout the day, including by a fact-checker who missed the assertion that the 2011 shooting that wounded Rep. Gabby Giffords was linked to “political incitement,” in part because of the map.
On June 14, 2017, the day the editorial was published online, Bennet edited the editorial after another writer, Elizabeth Williamson, had written a first draft of it.
The editorial was written the day a gunman opened fire on GOP members of Congress at a northern Virginia baseball field — and was supposed to discuss gun control and apparent heated political rhetoric that could’ve led to the shooting.
In his edits, Bennet...
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