Instapundit on Peter Brimelow’s $5M Lawsuit Against The NYT — “I Would Have Added A Zero To The Claim”

Earlier: Brimelow Lawsuit Against NYT Makes POLITICO—And Drudge!

Instapundit (law professor Glenn Reynolds) on Peter Brimelow’s five million dollar lawsuit against the New York Times:

The piece he’s linking to, by PJMedia’s Tyler O’Neil, shows that the author has actually read the PDF of our complaint.

O’Neil writes

According to the lawsuit, the SPLC branded Brimelow a “white nationalist” in an attempt to stifle debate on immigration and because it wished to vilify his views that race may be biologically connected to intelligence. Yet The New York Times has itself “bravely pushed the boundaries of the taboos on race,” the lawsuit states, citing articles published between July 2001 and March 2003 which covered scientific developments supposedly linking race to genetics.

Nicholas Wade wrote those articles, and the lawsuit recounts that the SPLC attacked him “for writing about the science of race differences” in May 2014.

“Nevertheless, Defendant knows that it itself is not a purveyor of hate or white nationalism because it has published articles on the science of racial differences,” Brimelow argues.

The lawsuit quoted a letter the VDARE editor sent to the paper two day after it published the article attacking him.

“Mr. Brimelow is not a ‘white nationalist’ and, specifically, does not refer to himself as such,” the letter stated. “To the contrary, he has repeatedly said that he is a ‘civic nationalist.’ For example, in a February 23, 2018 interview with Slate’s Osita Nwanevu, Mr. Brimelow stated as follows: ‘Personally, I would regard myself as a civic nationalist.’”

“The fact that VDARE has published some critiques of America’s immigration policies from those who aim to defend the interests of whites does not mean that Mr. Brimelow is an ‘open white nationalist,’ any more than the New York Times’s decision to publish op-eds by avowed socialists makes it ‘openly socialist,'” his lawyer argued.

The lawsuit also quotes The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage, which states, “Fairness and impartiality… should be the hallmark of all news articles and news analyses that appear in the Times. It is of paramount importance that people or organizations accused, criticized or otherwise cast in a bad light have an opportunity to speak in their own defense… Thus it is imperative that the reporter make every effort to reach the accused … If it is not possible to do so, the article should say that the effort was made and explain why it did not succeed.”

The paper also claims a high standard for corrections: “Because its voice is loud and far-reaching, The Times recognizes an ethical responsibility to correct all its factual errors, large and small (even misspellings of names), promptly and in a prominent reserved space in the paper… Whether an error occurs in a print article, a digital graphic, a video, a tweet or a news alert, readers should expect us to correct it. There is no five-second rule. It does not matter if it was online for seconds or minutes or hours.”

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