CNN’s Reckless Smear Tactics Could Cost Them Big After Latest Court Ruling
By: Brianna Lyman (The Federalist)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
A veteran's defamation lawsuit against CNN had another success last week when a judge permitted the case to proceed over the objections of CNN's lawyers.
Zachary Young, a U.S. Navy veteran, was using his business, Nemex Enterprises, to help facilitate evacuations from Afghanistan following the disastrous 2021 withdrawal. But CNN ran a segment on "The Lead With Jake Tapper" that, according to Young's lawsuit, claimed Young "was 'exploiting' 'desperate Afghans' by offering evacuations from Afghanistan on a 'black market.'"
Young sued CNN. According to his lawsuit, Young used "his unique skillset and relationships to assist U.S. corporations and charities that wanted to safely and swiftly extract certain persons from Afghanistan."
"Contrary to CNN's untrue and sensationalist reporting, Young never advertised to, or took a single penny from, any Afghan, much less 'exploited' 'desperate Afghans,'" Young's suit argues. "And he certainly never sold any services on a 'black market.' Everything he did was legal."
And the court also agreed that Young "did not do anything criminal or illegal," according to Fox News.
On Friday, Judge William Henry denied CNN's motion for summary judgment, allowing Young to go forward with his suit in seeking punitive damages, according to Fox News. A summary judgment would have allowed Henry to decide the case based on existing evidence without going to trial. But Henry found a jury could find CNN acted with malice.
Henry found that CNN had "no evidence that Young did anything criminal or illegal" and yet went ahead with the "black market" accusation anyway. Henry ruled that CNN, despite claiming "three weeks of newsgathering," had no facts to back up its insinuations. The court also found that Young "did not take money from Afghans."
Henry found that CNN had a narrative they wanted to peddle and Young was their scapegoat. Henry pointed to the fact that CNN's Alex Marquardt had already pitched his story before even talking to Young using what Henry described as "explosive" terms like "price gouging," "extortion," "shadowy black market," and "fraud," to preemptively malign Young, according to Fox News.
"Then fortuitously, a door was opened to obtain information for the piece when Young reached out to [CNN Reporter Katie Bo Lillis]," Henry ruled, according to Fox News. "Once Young stopped cooperating with the investigative reporters Marquardt found his 'fall guy' — Young …"
According to Henry's ruling, CNN then decided to "rely on its own proffered definition of 'black market,' which has been a moving target throughout this litigation …"
"This is sufficient evidence upon which a reasonable jury could find with convincing clarity that Defendant acted with natural malice," Henry concluded. The civil trial is slated to begin Jan. 6 in the Circuit Court for Bay County, Florida.
CNN had previously attempted to avoid potentially paying punitive damages. Florida law stipulates a publication seeking to avoid punitive damages must publish a "full and fair correction, apology or retraction."
Tapper issued a statement on March 25, 2022 purporting to retract their previous false reporting. Tapper said, in part, that the chyron used during the story that referenced a "black market" was used "in error" and that CNN "didn't mean to suggest that Mr. Young participated in the black market," according to Fox News contributor Jonathan Turley.
But the court reportedly found "the retraction/correction was not made during the other television shows in which the Segment aired. No retraction, correction or apology was posted on any online article or with a social media posting."
And as Turley explained, the recent court rulings allowing Young to go forward seeking punitive damages "could spell real trouble for CNN."
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It's surprising CNN is still on the air. The bloggers / vloggers haven't been provided facts in years.
FoxNews is still on the air despite losing around 3/4 of a billion dollars for their admitted lies. So CNN has nothing to worry about.
For a station that has less viewers than the food channel it might be more difficult for them to survive
I'll edit this for you.
FoxNews is still on the air.........CNN has nothing
Good for him.
What did this Evil veteran do? smirk at a jackass beating a drum in his face?
To be fair, that old dude was just trying to calm down a rowdy situation and didn't know how.
The jackasses were in the newsroom.
Screaming at white kids to go back to Europe while invading their personal space isn't really an attempt to calm things down
I've not read any account, including Sandman's, of the drummer saying anything.
There was a lot of shit coming from other people, but not Nathan Phillips.
Well, marching up to kids who are being called “racists,” “bigots,” “white crackers,” “faggots,” and “incest kids" and playing a drum in their face is an aggressive action in and of itself. Phillips, and his group, initiated a confrontation with the Covington kids.
It's pretty clear on the video. It's the people with the drummer screaming at the kids. As Sandman said, "During the period of the drumming, a member of the protestor’s entourage began yelling at a fellow student that we “stole our land” and that we should “go back to Europe.”
There is zero evidence Phillips was trying to calm down a rowdy situation.
By all accounts, the drummer was peaceful and well meaning. By his own account, he was trying to disrupt an escalating situation, and I've not read anything to dispute that, including Sandmann's remarks.
The other kids were being kids. Teenage boys get rowdy.
The Black Hebrews were adults, who undoubtedly knew better and were all to happy to start a fight with some kids. It's very unlikely they'd have shouted racist bullshit at or otherwise antagonized a group of grown men.
Nathan Phillips may not have handled the situation in the best way possible, but he intervened, bought some time, and a potential brawl was avoided. He's not a sophisticated man. He's not trained in de-escalation. He was doing the only thing he could think to do, and luckily it worked.
The most important story of the incident was the media's immediate presumption and desire to portray a group of Trump supporters as violent thugs. In order to do that, they needed to make Philips out as some sort of combination of left wing hero and victim. He denies both.
Sandmann has said repeatedly he bears Philips no ill will, respects him, would love to talk with him, and thanks him for his service (USMC).
I don't know what to say. Watch the full video. He's clearly, absolutely, undeniably the aggressor and is provoking Sandmann. His group then presented a dishonestly edited video to the media and lied about what happened. He went on CNN and claimed the Covington kids were about to lynch the Black Israelites and that Sandmann approached him and blocked his way. Those are lies.
a d I've not read anything to dispute that, including Sandmann's remarks.
Sandmann:
I was not intentionally making faces at the protester. I did smile at one point because I wanted him to know that I was not going to become angry, intimidated or be provoked into a larger confrontation.
In a subsequent interview , he explained that he thought the Native Americans were being friendly, but then realized they had started hurling racial epithets at the boys too. The rest of the boys still thought they were friendly and started chanting their school spirit cheer to the rhythm of the drum.
Obviously, Sandmann understood Phillips was trying to provoke him and said as much.
, and thanks him for his service (USMC)
He also lied about being a Vietnam vet.
Here's the best example of what I see is the biggest problem. Just my opinion.
He said he was a "Vietnam era vet".
The media usual suspects then misquoted him, because those fuckers don't give a shit about accuracy. They will say absolutely anything that makes Trump supporters look bad. That's not Philip's fault.
Personally, I am very happy that Nick Sandmann got enough money that he'll never have to work a day in his life. It wasn't enough penalty for the WP, CNN and others, IMO.
That said, I'm inclined to cut this poor old Indian dude some slack. It just looks to me like he was caught out of his depth in a situation where he didn't know what to do, and he's caught a lot of shit because the aforementioned inaccurate fuckers have made him out to be some sort of Native American Greta Thunberg or some other shit he never wanted to be.
If he was really the "activist" they like to claim, he'd have been all over the news for months. He'd be a wealthy man from all the appearance fees on everything from Maddow to the View to Morning Joe. He didn't do any of that.
The villians in this story are news outlets.