CNN found liable for defamation
Because the person defamed was not a public figure, the standard was lower:
A Florida jury found CNN liable on Friday in a high-stakes defamation trial against U.S. Navy veteran Zachary Young, who alleged that the network maligned him as an “illegal profiteer” with a report on Afghan evacuees being charged thousands of dollars to flee the country following the U.S. military withdrawal.
Following two days of deliberations, the jury ruled that CNN must pay Young $4 million in financial damages and $1 million for emotional damage, adding that Young is also owed punitive damages. The trial is now heading into a second phase to determine the amount of punitive damages Young should receive from the network.
And of course this was in Florida. Had it been in NYC or especially in DC, the verdict might have been different.
This is interesting:
Additionally, CNN’s legal team argued in court filings that at the “time of its reporting, CNN knew little about Young’s financials, his model, or whether he’d successfully evacuated anyone because whenever anyone [including CNN] asked Young to explain his business, he obfuscated, behaved unprofessionally, lied, and hid.”
Are people required to answer the MSM’s questions? Apparently CNN thinks so. And why didn’t CNN wait till it knew the facts, instead of implying that what Young did was illegal? This appears to be why:
Throughout the trial, Freedman presented a series of Slack messages and emails from Marquardt and other CNN staffers in which they referred to Young as a “s***bag” with a “punchable face.” In one message to an editor, Marquardt said they were “gonna nail this Zachary Young mf***er,” while an editor responded: “Gonna hold you to that one cowboy!” In another message, Marquardt said of Young: “It’s your funeral, bucko.”
In depositions and court filings, CNN and its lawyers defended the harsh remarks as “banter” that’s part of a candid newsroom and that it didn’t impact the editorial process.
Sure thing. Highly objective.
I seem to remember another person with a supposedly “punchable face” who ultimately was paid quite a bit by various news agencies (including CNN) for defamation: Nicholas Sandmann.
CNN settled with Sandmann. They didn’t with Young. Looks like they’re going to pay a heavy price for malice and arrogance.
?!?!? “banter”? They must not know what banter means…
Since they haven’t already thrown themselves on the mercy of the victim Young—and the court, then they probably don’t know what “punitive damages” means either…
This is certainly a good outcome. Media organizations shouldn’t be able to maliciously lie about an individual private citizen, destroying their lives with absolute impunity. For too long sanctimonious cretins like Jim Acosta have abused their power under the aegis of them being objective journalists. Sounds like he may end up losing his job at CNN anyway.
Um, sorry – no. The staff emails came off as if the reporting team was salivating joyfully over the chance to grind Young into the dust, tarnish him personally. Malice, indeed.
So, in CNN’s view, if someone refuses to answer its queries, then CNN can trash that person’s reputation without facts to support the allegations. It’s a very good thing that the jury disagreed.
Hope he gets his money before CNN collapses.
I agree with Sgt. Mom. From all the summaries I’ve read, even taken with a grain of salt, there was plenty of actual malice.
I’ve seen reports that CNN settled almost immediately after the $5 million compensatory damage award was announced (but before the jury was to deliberate on punitive damages)
Nonapod on January 17, 2025 at 3:59 pm said:
“Media organizations shouldn’t be able to maliciously lie about an individual private citizen, destroying their lives with absolute impunity.”
They shouldn’t be able to lie about anyone, even a very public figure like Trump or Senator Warren, et al. Perhaps the legal view on libel and slander is beginning to change?
https://www.amazon.com/Rethinking-Defamation-Accountability-Claremont-Provocations-ebook/dp/B0BGFZNT22
Carson Holloway, Rethinking Libel, Defamation, and Press Accountability (Claremont Provocations Monograph Series).
Not to advocate violence, but whatever they look like, I think these CNN scum have “punchable faces”.
They should award him a Google dollars. The nastyness of the media must stop.
The polarization of the US is partly because the media, especially the NYT, has been legally allowed to defame and slander public figures. It’s great that Young won.
The need for proven malice was a SCOTUS opinion, so it’s something SCOTUS needs to change. Tho I imagine Congress could help by explicitly redefining malice to a lower standard, one that would have clearly shown NYT had malice against Sarah Palin.
Why was this guy a CNN target in the first place? Was getting folks out of Astan such a crime to the CNN folks? (probably) Was it that they objected to the fees required?
But why the personal vendetta flavor to this whole thing?
Anything new on the punitives?
This is a result of computerization and the rise of social media. In the old days, reporters conspired face to face or in memos that were easy to lose. Now the conspiring is preserved somewhere. It’s not like you can say that the carbon copies were lost or thrown out.
“Banter.” Even villains “banter” among themselves (like superheros in Marvel movies are always doing). You could make the case that much of the Nixon tapes were “banter.” When politicians, bureaucrats, and corporate officials discuss how to to stifle critics or crush opposition, they’ll refer to their opponents in a jocular, bantering style. It’s a generational thing. Obama joking about Trump at the White House Correspondents Dinner segues into government agencies listening in to the calls of Trump staffers. If people don’t like or trust you, “banter” isn’t a defense.
CNN settled with Young. Looks like they weren’t excited about the punitive damages.
”Why was this guy a CNN target in the first place?”
I suspect it was that by organizing a private rescue operation he brought to the public’s attention that there *were* Americans trapped in Afghanistan and thus Biden was lying when he said that there weren’t. It also highlighted the incompetence of the Biden administration when a single man could get people out that the Bidens with all the resources of the federal government could not.
It’s the same reason the local government went after Joe the Plumber in 2008 when he merely asked a simple question that Barack Obama flubbed the answer to. “You made the king look bad, and now you will pay” except they’re acting not out of policy but out of love for the king, which leads to hatred of his enemies.
mkent
Most likely. But, and here I go again, why was CNN so emotionally invested in Biden? Perhaps they were emotionally invested in their original emotional investment and couldn’t afford to give it up.
One wonders if a similar emotional thingy–for whatever reason–was involved in the Sandmann issue.
And now, CNN must be wondering it was worth it. After this shakes out, x percentage of watchers believe them and missed the whole defamation thing. Okay. That’s how many think Young’s a jerk now? Still a win? Lose? Draw?
Warning not to try again?
Not relevant to trying again?
He was a target because the legacy media is run by villains.
”…why was CNN so emotionally invested in Biden?”
They weren’t invested in Biden per se but in the Democratic Party, but Biden was its standard bearer at the time. Note how quickly that emotional investment switched to Harris once Biden was pushed aside.
I’ve come to believe that the emotional relationship between upper-class Democrats and the Democratic Party is like that of a medieval monk and the Catholic Church: it’s not just a large organization that pays all of the bills but also the source of all goodness in the world. They simply must defend it against all enemies, even those enemies who don’t perceive themselves as enemies.