Newsweek Published False Damaging Claims, But Don't Call It Defamation

The outlet published salacious internet hearsay with no investigation, subsequent investigation could validate none of it, but Court finds no "Actual Malice" despite apparent "bias."

In October 2021, and “just in time for Halloween,” Newsweek published a hit piece against The Satanic Temple authored by an old school Satanic Panic-monger, Julia Duin whose previous works include a book called “Purity Makes the Heart Grow Stronger,” which Library Journal claims makes the “case for chastity with [...] insight and sensitivity.” The resultant article would make false claims of sexual abuse and cover-up within the Temple, leading to a defamation suit. In suing Newsweek for defamation, it was not enough to establish that their claims were false, or lacking in any evidentiary basis, but that the outlet had engaged in “actual malice,” meaning that we had to prove that Newsweek had “knowledge that the allegedly defamatory statement was false or [acted with] reckless disregard as to its truth or falsity.” In fact, the fact that there was no evidence for the claims published was undisputed by the time the Court ruled. The question was strictly whether or not the publication of the false claims constituted “Actual Malice.”

Following the dismissal of the case in Newsweek’s favor, legal scholar co-authors at JDSupra wrote, “Newsweek published an article about the Satanic Temple, including a statement that there was ‘more than anecdotal evidence’ of sexual abuse at the Temple. Despite Newsweek's editorial guidelines requiring credible sources and an opportunity for organizations accused of wrongdoing to comment, the statement came from a ‘semi-anonymous’ source that could not be independently verified, and the Temple was not asked for comment. In addition, the Court determined that an email from the author of the article could support a finding that she was biased against the Temple at the time of writing the article.” Nonetheless, ”The Court ultimately granted Newsweek summary judgment due to the Satanic Temple's failure to present enough evidence to allow a reasonable jury to determine that Newsweek acted with actual malice. It reached this conclusion even though there was evidence of Newsweek's ‘fail[ure] to follow its own internal Editorial Guidelines’ and ‘evidence of bias,’ reasoning that neither was sufficient for a reasonable jury to find that Newsweek's publication was made with actual malice.” The authors conclude, “The Satanic Temple decision reinforces the heavy burden on defamation plaintiffs whenever the actual malice requirement applies to their claims.”

How actual malice could have been more firmly established is unknown to me. In short, Newsweek published rumors about TST that it did no investigation to substantiate, as required by its own editorial rules, and failed to substantiate those claims in any subsequent investigation related to the suit itself. Newsweek brought forth three witnesses, and all three witnesses, under oath, denied any actual personal knowledge of sexual abuse or cover-up and were unable to provide firsthand witnesses. Nobody Duin talked to claimed to have personal knowledge of sexual abuse or cover-up. Nancy Cooper, editor of the piece (the Global Editor in Chief of Newsweek, in fact), admitted under oath that she had no idea who was sexually abused, what the alleged sexual abuse entailed, who engaged in the cover-up, or what the cover-up entailed.

Duin, it turns out, wrote about imaginary Satanic cults as far back as the 1980s, claiming that “Sex is introduced early in the game, as adolescents are fascinated by sexuality and the occult offers plenty of it,” further claiming that these cults engage in “gang rapes” and purporting that this is all covered up by Satanists not hesitating to “kill defectors.” Duin had also written specifically about The Satanic Temple three previous times, as in one of our motions our attorney pointed out, “In each, she complains of the Temple’s very existence: whether because the Temple benefits from an equal right to have a physical presence or from an equal right to tax-exempt status…”

Beyond doing no investigation into the allegations of sexual misconduct and cover-up claimed in the article, Duin actually seemed dedicated to avoiding any information that might disprove the notion. She interviewed me, but at no time in the interview did she ask me about such allegations. She interviewed Joe Laycock, the author of a book, published by Oxford University Press, about The Satanic Temple, but she asked him nothing about such allegations either.

Ironically, it turns out that the idea for the story was pitched to Duin by a reporter for the Catholic News Agency, where one would think that concern for the topic of sexual abuse would not need lead them so far from their chosen beat. Apparently, the CNA reporter was reached out to by “disgruntled former members” who claimed “some allegations of TST leadership sexually exploiting members or failing to respond to harassment / sex assault allegations against chapter heads.”

Perhaps the most interesting thing you can know about these “disgruntled former members” is that they never worked with us. By “us” I mean myself, and the organization-wide management of The Satanic Temple. They never had any contact with me of any kind, either directly or indirectly, and I never knew of their existence, or communicated anything to them prior to their grandstanding departure, as members, from a congregation of ours in the Pacific Northwest during 2020. This is of interest, because if you ever see them online, they position themselves as authorities regarding my behavior, personal ethics, failures, and foibles. They pretend to have personal knowledge regarding my inner thoughts and personal life. I first heard of them after they hijacked their congregation’s social media assets, claiming them as their own, advancing themselves as an alternative Satanic group that they eventually called “Queer Satanic.”

That these former members joined The Satanic Temple with the intent to steal these social media pages and start fundraising as an anti-TST counter-organization seems quite plausible. In the Newsweek piece itself, one of them openly admitted, "I actually don't identify with Satanism at all; I never did…I found all the Satanism stuff to be quite cringy, to be honest."

Upon leaving TST they took a scattershot approach to defaming the organization, making pretty much every kind of claim of nefarious activity they could think of. They accused us of being a pyramid scheme, though their definition of a “pyramid scheme” is simply in reference to our having an organizational hierarchy. In fact, their definition of “pyramid scheme” would have it that every registered nonprofit, having (and required to have) directors and owners, would also be labeled as such. It is quite likely that none of them ever paid anything to TST, as there is no membership fee, nor was there any fee to their becoming members of the congregation they were in, and no requirement that they donate to our causes.

That they would reach out to Catholic News Agency seems hypocritical being that they will accuse us of collusion with “the right” if I so much as make an appearance on Fox News. They claim we are a “crypto-fascist” organization, veering solidly into conspiracy theory, even accusing “the press” of an implausible unwillingness to look deeper into the truth behind TST because of a general love that “the media” has for our organization. Such love has never been evident to me. Even when it was revealed that a member they gained from New York, who goes by the name of “Heinrich,” had a proclivity toward racist tirades (as revealed by text screenshots publicly shared by a former friend of his), they did not remove him from their team, they simply ignored it and continued to accuse TST of being secret Nazis. (Heinrich, for his part, blamed the racist texts on the fact that he had been a member of TST when he had sent them without bothering to try and make sense of that claim. TST does not tolerate racist bullshit and never has). They claim that my past shows me to be a secret Nazi, yet in the Newsweek piece itself they admit to having learned nothing new about my past from the time that they were members of a congregation to the time in which they departed.

One of their four founding members left or was removed after their active wife-beating domestic violence charges were revealed. Another disappeared from social media when mocked for posting about calling the police—amid a series of “ACAB” and “Defund” posts—upon finding that somebody had apparently stolen one of their flags.

To this day, they will still make nonsensical claims, such as distributing their Medium piece claiming “The Satanic Temple can’t help you get an abortion” in reply to posts about us opening our third abortion clinic, after we have already helped more than one hundred people get abortions. They do not bother to explain what they think the clinics actually do, or if they are suggesting that the existence of these clinics is a hoax. “The grift continues,” they will opine, suggesting that our free abortion services are profitable (we charge nothing, and clients only cover the cost of their own medication), pretending that it is unclear where donations go even as the product of those donations (the facilities) is undisputed. In fact, they simultaneously accuse us of profiting from litigation, while disparaging us for often losing in court, apparently failing to comprehend the contradiciton.

The fact is, there have been plenty of deep-diving journalists that have been well aware of these “disgruntled ex-members” and their claims, but none of them, upon investigation, found their claims to be credible. None, that is, except Newsweek.

When Duin reached out to me, she was clearly interested in pursuing any evidence of financial malfeasance. There is none, and she could not manufacture any. She asked about our various business filings, thinking them suspicious and likely to be hiding something. The answer is uninteresting. We started out as an LLC. Soon we were applying for accommodations (such as after school clubs) that sometimes required nonprofit status, so we filed a nonprofit. Then we became an IRS-recognized church, for which we filed new articles of incorporation, and so on. Somewhere in this I gave a quote stating that we “get this litany of senseless disparaging claims against us that says we’re a religious group acting in a nefarious manner,” which Newsweek argued was a blanket denial of all wrong-doing which sufficed for the purposes of giving me an opportunity to deny sexual abuse cover-up allegations, even though I was asked about no such thing.

Duin, for her part, rested her case on the fact that she herself found the claims “inherently plausible.” Newsweek clearly hoped that investigation, through discovery during the lawsuit, would reveal sexual abuse that they had failed uncover before claiming it existed. Despite their best efforts, it turns out that we had no claims of sexual abuse, and a handful of inter-personal sexual harrassment claims, for which in every instance, “the perpetrator of the misconduct has either voluntarily stepped down or was removed.” Under oath, one of the deponents hilariously tried to make the case that I personally solicited nude pictures during Lupercalia, suggesting that this was sexual abuse. The reality is that, during Lupercalia (a Satanic holiday) one year, I began retweeting people’s #NudeForLupercalia posts, thus “soliciting” their nudity, and therefore, in some tortured stretch of the imagination, committing “sexual abuse.” This gives you some sense of the absurdity of the testimony offered. They were unable to offer anybody with any firsthand of their allegations, all admitted to having no such knowledge themselves, and ultimately it was established that they were nothing more than purveyors of internet hearsay that Newsweek irresponsibly chose to present as factual.

Here are direct, under-oath quotes from the testimony of each and all of the witnesses for the defense:

Nathan Sullivan

Q. And you personally did not see any of the sexual harassment, correct?

A. Correct

Paul Millirons (aka Jinx Strange)

Q. Okay. Is it fair to say that your understanding of sexual abuse was secondhand through people basically telling you something over the internet?

A. Yes.

(Millirons had been quoted in the Newsweek piece claiming knowledge to accounts “of sexual abuse being covered-up in ways that were more than anecdotal.” Amusingly, in his testimony, Millirons described the other “Queer Satanic” defendants as “sloppy,” not “particularly well thought out,” and as acting in a way that “opened them up to litigation.” Recalling their first outreach to him, Millirons testified, “As far as I recall, they wanted support and kind of sharing around their fundraising links at the time.”)

David Alan Johnson

Q. Okay. Have you personally witnessed any sexual abuse within The Satanic Temple?

A. I have not.

(This is the tender lad whose sense of moral decency was offended by #NudeForLupercalia, realizing here, apparently, that it was not “abuse.”)

Nancy Cooper (Global Editor-in-Chief at Newsweek):

Q. Julia Duin wrote articles for Newsweek, correct?

A. Yes.

Q. Did you fact-check anything in the articles?

A. No. I raised questions to her, but I didn't personally fact-check things.

Q. Did Julia fact-check anything?

A. I don't believe so.

Q. And we're not talking just this article. We're talking overall.

A. As I recall, yes, to what you're saying.

Q. Did anyone else over Julia Duin's entire career at Newsweek fact-check any of her articles?

A. I don't believe so.

Duin’s testimony was infuriating. She spent a good deal of time trying to run down the clock, pausing, closing her eyes, sighing loudly. Often she would ask her attorney incredulously, “do I have to answer that?”

Here is just a brief sample of Duin’s testimony that will give you a sense as to the flavor of the entire exchange:

Q. Did you review any documents in preparation for today's deposition?

A. What do you mean by "documents"?

Q. You don't know what a document is?

A. Yes, I do. What do you mean -- define what you mean. Meaning the article? Or what do you mean by "documents"?

Q. Please give me your definition of "documents."

A. No. I'm asking you to give me your definition of what you -- you asked the question.

Q. Julia, you are the witness. I am the interrogating attorney. You do not ask questions, you answer questions. Let's try this again. Please give me your definition of a document.

A. I don't know.

Q. You don't know what a document is? This is your sworn testimony as a witness?

A. Let's go back to your question of me. Did I review any documents?

Q. Julia, my question posed is whether you have a definition for "documents." You said yes. What is the definition of documents?

A. I don't know.

Q. Your sworn testimony --

A. I don't know.

Q. -- under penalty of perjury --

A. I don't know what you're talking about.

Q. -- is that you do not know the definition of documents. Correct or incorrect?

A. I know what a document is. I don't know what you're talking about.

Nonetheless, and as already stated, the Court ultimately found not that we had not been lied about. We clearly had. Rather, it was determined that the lies told by Newsweek were not shown to be motivated by “actual malice.” Our disgruntled former members, unsurprisingly, hail this as vindication of their false claims, still positioning themselves as the victimized underdogs taking on Big Satan and asking for donations to continue their crusade. And so, the grift continues…

The appeal case is currently pending before the Second Circuit, and our brief is due on July 23, 2025. Stay tuned.