CNN found liable for defaming Navy veteran, has to pay $5 million

Corporate news media is losing viewers, and no wonder – they are very biased in how they cover the news. But sometimes, they go beyond bias, and actually defame other people. Recently, CNN, a former news network, ran a story about a Navy veteran. And they got in big trouble for it. And now they have to pay millions and millions of dollars.

I have to link to the Media Research Center’s Newsbusters blog, because nobody does a better job of covering media bias than Newsbusters.

They write:

On Friday, a jury of six in Florida’s 14th Circuit Court in Bay County has found CNN liable for the defamation of Navy veteran Zachary Young and that he was entitled economic and emotional damages, a ruling that proved CNN was not worthy of their moniker “the most trusted name in news.” They also found that CNN’s reporters had demonstrated expressed malice, actual malice, and outrageous behavior, which opened the door for a massive punitive damages judgement.

The jury also found Young was entitled to $4 million in economic damages and $1 million in emotional damages. They also ruled that CNN should be subject to punitive damages, but the two sides settled Friday afternoon following nearly 90 minutes of discussions.

In another story from the New York Post, they talked about how much the punitive damages might be:

Louis G. Adolfsen, a defamation lawyer and founding member of the Melito & Adolfsen PC law firm in Manhattan, speculated that the settlement could be for as high as $25 million considering Panama City is a “rural or semi-rural” area where the jury pool is likely hostile to CNN.

Back to Newsbusters – this part is interesting. The material was false, and false to the level of defamation:

A ruling of liable meant the jury had determined CNN published the defamatory material, the material was “of and concerning” Young, the materials that was published was false, said false material rose to the level of defamation, CNN was negligent in their news reporting about Young, and that Young had sustained damages as a result of the material.

“False material rose to the level of defamation”. And these are the kinds of people who fact check what you say on social media.

Internal CNN e-mails show what they are really like:

Young’s lead counsel Vel Freedman said in his closing that the Marquardt segment ran on 11 different CNN shows both domestically and on CNN International. And, in addition to Marquardt’s defamatory report, it was accompanied by anchors making their own defamatory statements about Young.

The jury also found CNN had operated with expressed and actual malice. The evidence presented to the jury was clear; Marquardt had messaged colleagues that he was going to “nail this Zachary Young Mfucker” while calling the report was going to be “your funeral bucko.” CNN editors called him a “shit” and “a shitbag” who had a “punchable face.”

They say that journalism is one of the easiest majors to get. And when you read their internal e-mails, you really can see that they’ve never really moved beyond high school. What do people learn in journalism school? Nothing.

Anyway, it’s Saturday, so enjoy some good news.