Sandmann sues CNN
Suing CNN is a good idea:
“CNN was probably more vicious in its direct attacks on Nicholas than The Washington Post. And CNN goes into millions of individuals’ homes,” attorney L. Lin Wood said this weekend on Fox News.
“They really went after Nicholas with the idea that he was part of a mob that was attacking the Black Hebrew Israelites, yelling racist slurs at the Black Hebrew Israelites. Totally false,” he added. “Now you say you’ve seen the tape; if you took the time to look at the full context of what happened that day, Nicholas Sandmann did absolutely nothing wrong. He was, as I’ve said to others, he was the only adult in the room. But you have a situation where CNN couldn’t resist the idea that here’s a guy with a young boy, that Make America Great Again cap on. So they go after him.”
As far as I can tell, CNN and so many others didn’t just fail to follow accepted journalism standards. They followed no standards at all, except for those of the mob. But the MSM has in many cases become indistinguishable from the mob. The full video of the incident was available quite early in the game, and they ignored it. Nicholas Sandmann was not only a private citizen, he was an underage person. A lawsuit is highly appropriate.
I hope Sandmann wins this suit. I tend to doubt he will, but I hope to be pleasantly surprised.
I wonder if the Washington Post, CNN, and others who will be sued won’t end up settling rather than going to court. That might be less expensive for them.
One point about settling is that in addition to money changing hands or not, there is usually a non-disclosure agreement. I doubt that Sandmann and his attorney would settle for a blanket non-disclosure agreement. I believe they would want some public apology- and even changes in policies.
Win, lose, or draw – suing these Jacobins is the right course of action. Get these matters out of the always fickle court of public opinion and into a place where Twitter doesn’t render the verdict.
Anything that teaches the leftists that they have to face consequences for their actions when they do this outrageous stuff is a good thing.
I hope he wins, and becomes wealthy beyond avarice, but I doubt the media will learn from the lesson. They will consider themselves martyrs, to a Noble Cause.
Heh, the Evil Right (TM) is just trying its pathetic best to trample freedom of “speech”!—Remember, you heard it here first!
(That freedom being, of course, the freedom to lie, falsely accuse, slander, intimidate and threaten—for starters, since there’s a whole lot more.)
Yep, those awful, awful Republicans….
That poor, poor CNN….
He has a fair case with CNN and WaPoo. I would not be surprised to see it go to the Supreme Court which might be a mistake for the defendants. Thomas has been muttering about Sullivan. This could turn out to be a huge case.
Let it go to SCOTUS.
Let’s see if any of the judges dare to vote against the Covington kids.
I would like to ask the CNN people (Acosta, Stelzer,et al) if the are worried whether CNN might have to cut their salaries if Sandmann wins.
As ClawClaw said in the series “I, Claudius”
“Let all the poisons come out.”
And I want them to pay, pay, pay all the Covington students that they trashed.
CNN was extremely stupid not to retract the story and apologize.
LeClerc,
Roberts is the poison pill on SCOTUS. Ginsberg must be replaced with a real, non compromised, Constitutional conservative before I will have much hope that SCOTUS will do the right, Constitutional, thing.
Very hard to prove “actual malice” or “reckless disregard” is what someone pressing a suit for libel has to prove, if the person who claims they were libeled is a “public figure,” and that’s why very few public figures who are libeled ever pursue such a suit.
However, from looking at a few legal sites, all that someone who is not a public figure has to prove is “negligence,” and I’d imagine that someone who is not only not a “public figure”–but is a “private individual” and, in addition, is also a “minor child”–would have a fair shot at winning such a suit.
I expect those business entities sued will try to settle out of court for substantial sums, rather than take their chances with a jury trial, especially when the MSM is in such bad repute.
I also suspect that Sandmann will not settle, but will want to really rough up these entities in court, to prove a point, and to deter future conduct like his.
As for the individuals who have been or who are also going to be sued, I’d imagine that they are in an even worse position, in terms of their legal exposure.
I do find it interesting in that this and other lawsuits – which I consider to be MAJOR news – are interestingly absent or have little mention in the MSM.
Let’s hope that this lawsuit (and others like it) will cause the MSM to be more careful/truthful in their reporting.
My fear is that if Sandmann loses it will only embolden the MSM to be even more careless with their so-called reporting.
The “Malice ” standard for public figures might get diluted in a USSC decision. The WaPoo has been trying to say that Sandmann was now a “public figure” because they made him one. I would suggest they not try that on Clarence Thomas who has a history with slander.
Count Two:
Intentional Infliction of Emotional Harm?
Count Three:
“False Light” Invasion of Privacy?
Mike K — Kavanaugh too. (Has a history with slander.) One can but hope. But Kavanaugh at least seems to be heavily into following precedent. IMH–and pretty much uneducated–O, precedents are to be considered seriously but not blindly followed.
Also, you aroused my curiosity with your remark that “Thomas has been muttering about Sullivan.” A visit to the cyberstacks seemed in order. If anyone else here didn’t get the reference and has the itch to know, the NYT has a story on it:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/19/us/politics/clarence-thomas-first-amendment-libel.html
If anyone else here didn’t get the reference and has the itch to know, the NYT has a story on it:
Remember Melania won a big libel suit in Britain, which has libel laws that are much more severe and “public status” is less a factor. Trump has that experience to recall.
Good for society, bad for the press, an unwelcome distraction for Sandmann… the human rights crusader who opposes age discrimination, summary judgments, and cruel and unusual punishment for causes of social progress and others.
Also, Eugene Volokh has a UT up about Sullivan, which is pretty interesting because he keeps saying that the decision grants considerable leeway where the person [or entity?] being sued is a public official.
Which neither the WaPo, CNN, nor any of the MSM or its employees are, to the best of my (extremely limited) knowledge. 3:46, at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QeZ1mFTtn8s
Don’t forget the AT&T factor. Jeff Zucker is the boss of CNN, but Randall Stephenson is his boss. My guess is that Stephenson would love to have a good excuse to can Zucker, but he would also like to see the court case dismissed on the first go-around. If the court case goes badly for CNN and a settlement is attempted, Zucker’s job could be part of the settlement.
“Zucker’s job could be part of the settlement.”
I would love to see a lot of people lose their jobs over this. And don’t bother with “learn to code”, they are too stupid.
This needs to go to discovery. I want them to find the emails and memos that frame the state of mind of the reporters that worked on this story.
”I will illustrate why I regard newspaper correspondents as spies,” Sherman wrote on Feb. 17, 1863. ”A spy is one who furnishes an enemy with knowledge useful to him and dangerous to us. I say in giving intelligence to the enemy, in sowing discord & discontent in an army, these men fulfill all the conditions of spies. I am satisfied they have cost the country hundreds of millions of dollars & brought our country to the brink of ruin & that unless the nuisance is abated we are lost.”
”While they cry about blood & slaughter they are the direct cause of more bloodshed than fifty times their number of armed Rebels,” he wrote.
The correspondent who defied Sherman’s ban on journalists traveling with him was Thomas W. Knox of The New York Herald. At his court-martial, Mr. Knox was found not guilty on a charge that he gave intelligence to the enemy. But he was found guilty of disobeying Sherman’s order by accompanying the army down the Mississippi, although the court ”attaches no criminality thereto.” The tribunal ordered him not to return to the front.
Sherman had the last word. Mr. Knox appealed to President Lincoln, who countermanded the sentence on the condition that Sherman’s superior, Grant, agree. Grant did not, turning the matter over to Sherman, ”Come with a sword or musket in your hand, prepared to share with us our fate, and I will welcome you as a brother and associate,” Sherman wrote. But come as a reporter, he added, ”And my answer is Never!”-Sherman who is called Butcher because he burned Down the South’s Atlanta and Slave plantations
I wonder if the WaPo and CNN will provide exhaustive coverage of the legal proceeding as it unfolds.
I like the idea of a massive financial hit for WaPo and CNN. The way things are going, Sandmann is going to be blacklisted by any number–probably 90%–of universities and a good number of employers. So a deposit into his trust fund to take care of his loss of educational opportunities and employment is a great idea. Maybe a quarter of a billion isn’t entirely necessary for those purposes but there’s always the encourager les autres thing.
What would make the greater impact on the public’s view of journalism is complete and infinitely thorough discovery. That’s a separate issue.
I’m so very glad he’s suing, for big bucks. $50 mln damages, plus $200 mln punitive. To WaPo; and now CNN. Back in Jan I was hoping he would sue:
https://wordpress.com/post/tomgrey.wordpress.com/217
To Nick: Freedom needs you, and more like you. The freedom to wear whatever hat you like, MAGA or Pro-Life or Pro-Jesus.
Thank you for standing up, literally, for your freedom to be you.
I’d like him to sue his Bishop, too, but doubt that he will. Kathy Griffith, quite likely to get sued.
I’m also pretty sure he will win, in trial. Not at all sure what the award would be, but it’s not clear it will be much less; there’s much less talk about how award amounts are decided upon.
A very unlikely fantasy of mine would be a conditional award — where WaPo pays $50 mln damage, plus $50 mln punitive now, but puts $150 mln more into some kind of “escrow” account (a loss now for WaPo), which pays out $10 mln for any more slanders of MAGA hat wearers, or boys, or Catholics. WaPo makes a slander, Nick calls them on it, the judge approves a $10 mln award. If a 3-month quarter goes by without an award, the WaPo recovers $10 mln. (The slander might include slander of public figures?) One of my less realistic dreams.
One key point of the punitive damages is to change the WaPo culture so their current slander supporting work culture gets changed to require more facts. They would actually become a far better paper, faster, with such a system.
There is an interesting story around that someone is developing a smart phone app that lists MAGA hat friendly places to eat and drink in your area. That could be smart marketing if it happens. Chick fil A is an example of how powerful that could be,
WaPo won’t be hurt — Jeff Bezos probably thinks of $250 mill as petty cash. CNN, though, is owned by AT&T. AT&T management or their shareholders may not be cool with paying out a quarter of a billion dollars; they might dump CNN.
There is only one standard for the Press, especially CNN. Hate Trump and Hate those who support Trump. The fact that they were Catholics at a Pro Life march was just a bonus sewer of hate.