A University of Alabama basketball player has won a defamation suit against the New York Times.
New York Times loses defamation suit, ordered to pay $9.25M to former Alabama basketball player https://t.co/qqRps9TsWc pic.twitter.com/GGOYw8K351
The NYT falsely identified him as being a passenger in a vehicle involved in a crime.
The New York Times was defeated in a defamation lawsuit Thursday brought by a former college basketball player and ordered to pay millions in damages.
An Alabama jury ruled the Times defamed Kai Spears, then an 18-year-old freshman walk-on basketball player for the University of Alabama’s Crimson Tide, who was swept up in a 2023 report linking him to a fatal shooting.
After a nine-day trial, the eight-person jury determined that Spears was owed $9.25 million in damages.
Spears was mentioned in the March 2023 report authored by New York Times sportswriter Billy Witz.
Spears was falsely identified as being a passenger in the car at the site of a January 2023 shooting that resulted in the death of 23-year-old Jamea Harris.
The Times issued a lengthy editor’s note to the report in June 2023, but only after Spears filed the defamation lawsuit at the US District Court for the Northern District of Alabama.
It doesn't happen often, but sometimes the good guys win.
Good. The NYT said "Hey, we stand by our reporting" and refused to retract the story even after it was proven false. This is malice, not an honest mistake.The media has a track record of malicious disregard for the truth (see also Duke lacrosse and UVA fraternity et al). The… https://t.co/KBhzZ3ikku
They had an 'anonymous' source insisting this young man was involved, and they refused to entertain any new evidence.
Will they ever learn!! https://t.co/1ncOHJEYoH
NYT reporting standards have sunk to a new low: “relied on one anonymous source” https://t.co/ED4r6dzSvc
And based on that one source, tried to ruin a kid's life.