Here at Slate, Seth Stevenson is the guy we send to big trials.

He started out covering the Microsoft antitrust trial.

That was nearly 25 years ago.

I covered Michael Jackson's trial and Scooter Libby and then Whitey Bulger and

Jahar Sarna. He got interested in his latest trial, Sarah Palin v. The New York Times,

after he'd been hanging around the Southern District of New York, reporting on a different

prosecution. I covered the Gillen-Mexwell trial, which is also in this district. And I sort of got

on the email list and they send out notable trials upcoming. And I saw this one and I said,

whoa, that's interesting. And then I read a little bit more about it. And I said, whoa, the future

of American journalism is possibly at stake here.

And I said, I would like to see that.

So that's how I came to be there.

Sarah Palin versus the New York Times is about a journalistic error.

The stuff of every reporter's nightmares.

I mean, I think part of the reason why this case has been so fascinating for people like you and me is that it's about a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day that is very

familiar to all of us. Everyone has gotten something wrong in an article and woken up in the

middle of the night and been like, did I mess that up?

Yeah, I mean, I have had that feeling many times.

Early on in my career, a crusty older editor, Jack Schaefer, said to me,

to write is eventually to goof.

Because you're just, you're human.

You are going to mess up at some point, despite your best efforts.

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