Sarah Palin in legal setback against New York Times

WASHINGTON - 30 August 2017: A US federal judge dealt a legal blow Tuesday to failed 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, who sued The New York Times for defamation.

"Nowhere is political journalism so free, so robust or perhaps so rowdy as in the United States," US District Judge Jed Rakoff ruled in New York.

"In the exercise of that freedom, mistakes will be made, some of which will be hurtful to others."

A recent Times editorial published after the June 14 attack on Republican lawmakers who were practicing for a baseball game linked the attack and an earlier 2011 one on Arizona lawmaker Gabrielle Giffords.

An ad run by Palin supporters had put Gifford's congressional district in the crosshairs of a firearm.

The Times corrected the editorial. It said there was nothing that could demonstrate that the Palin-linked group that injured Giffords and killed six other people had been driven to act by the controversial ad.

Palin, a former governor of Alaska, said she would sue the paper regardless for malice.

But the judge said Palin had failed to demonstrate that the paper had acted intentionally to harm her reputation.