{"id":5844,"date":"2026-08-21T12:39:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-21T12:39:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nationwideinterstatemovers.com\/?p=5844"},"modified":"2026-08-21T12:39:00","modified_gmt":"2026-08-21T12:39:00","slug":"new-york-times-loses-first-defamation-suit-in-50-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nationwideinterstatemovers.com\/?p=5844","title":{"rendered":"New York Times Loses First Defamation Suit in 50 Years"},"content":{"rendered":"<article>\n<div>\n<p>The New York Times lost its first defamation suit in more than 50 years when a jury found it had defamed a former college basketball star. In 2023, the Times wrongly reported that Kai Spears, who played for the University of Alabama men\u2019s basketball team, was in a car with teammates at the scene of a shooting where a 23-year-old mother died. A teammate was charged with murder and awaits trial. The reporter relied on a single anonymous source to place Spears at the scene. After publication, Spears\u2019 father denied his son was present, and the article was updated with his denials. However, two months later, Spears sued, complaining that he would forever be linked with a murder. The article was corrected, and the reporter even apologized to Spears in court. On Thursday, the jury awarded Spears $9.25 million in damages. This followed a nine-day trial in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama. Spears\u2019 lawyer told the jury in his closing argument that they had \u201cthe opportunity today to change the way journalism works at The New York Times.\u201d \u201cThere was a mistake, an honest mistake,\u201d Michael Bell, a lawyer for the paper, argued. After the verdict, Spears posted a Bible verse from James 1\u202c:\u202d17\u202c on Instagram: \u201cEvery good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/nationwideinterstatemovers.com\/?p=5839\">Pride of Trump\u2019s Navy Finally Limps Home After Deployment From Hell<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Read it at <span>New York Times<\/span><\/article>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The New York Times lost its first defamation suit in more than 50 years when a jury found it had defamed a former college basketball star. In 2023, the Times wrongly reported that Kai Spears, who played for the University of Alabama men\u2019s basketball team, was in a car with teammates at the scene of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5843,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5844","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-u-s-news"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>New York Times Loses First Defamation Suit in 50 Years - Nationwide Inter State Movers<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/nationwideinterstatemovers.com\/?p=5844\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"New York Times Loses First Defamation Suit in 50 Years - Nationwide Inter State Movers\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The New York Times lost its first defamation suit in more than 50 years when a jury found it had defamed a former college basketball star. 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