• by Ray Schultz , Columnist, February 5, 2025

From the litigation beat comes two stories that do not appear related on the surface, but share a certain connection.  

In one, Fox News reports that conservative influencer CJ Pearson plans to sue New York magazine over its cover feature, “The Cruel Kids’ Table,” which he says portrayed the group attending an inauguration party for influencers as racist, while allegedly cropping out Black attendees. 

In the other case, the Hollywood Reporter writes that the New York Times has spent $10.8 million to date in its copyright lawsuit against OpenAI. 

What do these two cases have in common? 

That they cost money—the kind that only big publications can afford. 

Pearson has not yet sued New York, but he has sent notice that he plans to.  

"I am sick and tired of the left-wing mainstream media having a license to lie about conservatives and never be held accountable,"  Pearson, the national co-chair of the Republican National Committee’s Youth Advisory Council and himself a person of color, told Fox. "If they want to slander us as racist, they ought to pay the cost when they do it."

Pay the cost? Maybe the coverage was inaccurate or skewed—we don’t know. But since Pearson was not named or pictured by New York, it is hard to see how he has standing to file a slander suit.

But even if it succeeds in having the case tossed as frivolous, it will cost New York plenty.

In the Times case, the paper sued OpenAI in 2023 over its alleged use of Times content without permission to develop models. 

“The Times, buoyed by its 11 million-plus paid subscribers to its newspaper and suite of products, is one of the few journalistic entities that can afford to engage in yearslong litigation with Big Tech,” the Hollywood Reporter writes.

True enough. But the trouble with ending up in court at all, as plaintiff or defendant, is that there is no guarantee of success. Costly appeals can drag on for years.

The Times-OpenAI suit is one of the many publishing cases now crowding the legal docket—and the Times has had defamation cases of its own to defend. 

In January, the paper has asked the court to award it $100,000 in attorney fees resulting from a defamation suit filed against it by the Dfinity Foundation. A U.S. judge dismissed the defamation action. 

It’s hard to see how nonprofit publications or freelancer writers can play in this game.