• by Ray Schultz , Columnist, January 1, 2025

There’s nothing like starting off the year with a $250 million libel suit. 

The New York Times finds itself in this spot, having been sued this week by actor-director Justin Baldoni. Baldoni, the director and co-star of the film “It Ends With Us,” alleges that the Times defamed him with a Dec. 21 article outlining charges by Blake Lively, his co-star in the film, that she had been smeared by the actor and his publicists, the Times reports. 

“The article’s central thesis, encapsulated in a defamatory headline designed to immediately mislead the reader, is that plaintiffs orchestrated a retaliatory public relations campaign against Lively for speaking out about sexual harassment — a premise that is categorically false and easily disproven,” the lawsuit says.

The suit also alleges that the Times omitted texts and other information that would have contradicted Lively’s charges, and that it did so deliberately. 

We can’t speak to the truth of these claims. But we will note that the Times is no novice when it comes to defending itself against such cases. 

Indeed, the Times has its name on the most defining libel decision of the last 60+ years, Times vs. Sullivan. In that decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that public figures who sue for libel must prove “actual malice,” meaning reckless disregard of the facts, or knowing upfront that the information was false.

Conservative critics have long held that the Sullivan precedent is obsolete. 

Recently, a federal appeals court allowed former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin to refile a suit that had been thrown out. 

Palin complained she was libeled by a Times editorial that inferred she had incited the 2011 shooting of Gaby Giffords and several other people at a political event in Arizona. A Palin ad put several Democratic districts in the cross-hairs, but there was no hint that Palin was calling for violence. The Times apologized, but Palin said the damage had been done, a rare instance in which an editorial ended up in a libel action. 

However, this decision was more on technical grounds. 

As for the Baldoni case, the Times is hardly rolling over. 

 “We plan to vigorously defend against the lawsuit,” the Times says. “The role of an independent news organization is to follow the facts where they lead. Our story was meticulously and responsibly reported. It was based on a review of thousands of pages of original documents, including the text messages and emails that we quote accurately and at length in the article.”