The New York Supreme Court has ruled against The New York Times, finding that they used “actual malice” and acted with “reckless disregard” in several articles attacking Project Veritas.
The New York Supreme Court has ruled against The New York Times, finding that they used "actual malice" and acted with "reckless disregard" in several articles attacking Project Veritas.
The articles which were the subject matter of the legal action were written for the Times by Maggie Astor and Tiffany Hsu, and the ruling legally classifies them as editorial content, although they were being billed by the Times as news.
New York Supreme Court Justice Charles Wood, in his 16-page decision, wrote:
"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 fact or opinion, that it is opinion."
"The Articles that are the subject of this action called the Video 'deceptive,' but the dictionary definitions of 'disinformation' and 'deceptive' provided by defendants' counsel certainly apply to Astor's and Hsu's failure to note that they injected their opinions in news articles, as they now claim."
Veritas recently released a video of Veritas which alleged ballot harvesting in Minnesota for Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), which is one of the things attacked in the articles in question. Justice Wood's legal opinion on the matter follows:
"Stating that the video is 'deceptive' and stating 'without verifiable evidence' in a factual way in a news article certainly presents the statement as fact, not opinion."
"Further, the Astor and Hsu Articles could be viewed as exposing Veritas to ridicule and harm to its reputation as a media source because the reader may read these news Articles, expecting facts, not opinion, and conclude that Veritas is a partisan zealot group, deceptively editing video, and presenting it as news."
James O'Keefe, the Project's CEO, is ecstatic about the news, and is ready for what he says will be the next step:
"This ruling means Project Veritas will now be able to put New York Times reporter Maggie Astor and New York Times executive editor Dean Baquet under oath where they will be forced to answer our questions. Project Veritas will record these depositions and expose them for the world to see."
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