The New York Times was ordered Thursday to pay $9.25 million to former University of Alabama basketball player Kai Spears after an Alabama jury found that the newspaper defamed him in a 2023 article that falsely placed him at the scene of a deadly shooting.
Spears was an 18-year-old freshman walk-on with the Alabama Crimson Tide when the Times published a report incorrectly identifying him as a passenger in a vehicle present at the scene of the January 2023 shooting that killed 23-year-old Jamea Harris.
Following a nine-day trial, an eight-member jury sided with Spears and determined that he was entitled to $9.25 million in damages from the newspaper.
The false identification appeared in a March 2023 article written by New York Times sports reporter Billy Witz. The report linked Spears to the scene of the fatal shooting despite the fact that he had not been the person inside the vehicle.
The Times eventually appended a lengthy editor’s note to the article in June 2023, after Spears had already filed a defamation lawsuit against the newspaper in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama.
“The original version of this article, published March 15, misidentified the person who was in the car with [Crimson Tide star player] Brandon Miller when the shooting occurred,” the note began.
The Times acknowledged that its initial reporting had relied on information that wrongly identified Spears. The newspaper also said that although Spears’ father and the University of Alabama athletic director had denied that Spears was present, the Times initially reviewed its reporting and decided against making any further changes.
“Based on information from a person familiar with the case, the article erroneously identified that person as Kai Spears, a freshman basketball player. After the article was initially published, Alabama’s athletic director and Spears’s father denied that Spears was present. The Times included those responses and reviewed its reporting, but did not conclude that any other change to the article was warranted at that time.
“On Wednesday, Spears filed a defamation suit against The Times that included new details about the incident. Based on that information, editors assigned further reporting, which determined that the other person at the scene was not Spears but Cooper Lee, a student manager for the team. The Times regrets the error in the initial report.”
During the trial, Witz testified about the sourcing behind the incorrect identification. The longtime Times reporter, who began working for the newspaper in 2008, said one anonymous source he relied upon was a “high-level person, professional.”
Witz explained that he considered the source well-positioned to know details surrounding the case because of the individual’s professional position and access to investigative materials.
“I think the way I was looking at it, Source A, by their job title and by virtue of their access to the transcript, videos and impound photos, was somebody who knew a lot about this case,” Witz said, according to a report from The Tuscaloosa Patch.
Witz also described the broader direction he believed the article was taking as he worked on the story.
“In my mind, the story had a focus, and this tragedy, as bad as it was, could have been much worse.”
Another unnamed source had provided Witz with a vague description of the person believed to have been in the vehicle, without supplying a name.
“I can tell you it’s a White guy on the basketball team, I just don’t remember his name,” that source told Witz, according to his testimony.
While testifying at the defamation trial, Witz ultimately acknowledged that the published account had gotten a significant fact wrong.
“Yes, [the story] had a mistake, no question.”
The Times, reporting on the verdict itself, noted that the case marked an extraordinary legal defeat for the newspaper. According to its account, the Times had not lost a defamation lawsuit in the United States stemming from one of its articles in more than half a century.
Following the jury’s decision, the newspaper said it disagreed both with the finding of liability and with the multimillion-dollar damages award and indicated that it could pursue further legal action.
“We’re disappointed the jury found The Times liable for an honest mistake,” a Times spokesperson told Fox News Digital. “We thank the jury for its service, but believe the verdict and award of damages are contrary to law and not supported by the evidence. We are reviewing our legal options.”
about time gthey pay for their “mistakes” or “misreporting” the truth