CNN defamation trial: Case expected to be lost, but still a bruise for network, insider says

A CNN employee says this high-profile defamation case could have been expected to be lost within the network this week, but that didn’t stop him from making a mark.

“Being held liable for defamation and dishonesty is a bad thing,” the employee said bluntly in a message to Fox News Digital.

Navy veteran Zachary Young successfully argued that CNN defamed him by suggesting he made illegal money helping people flee Afghanistan on the “black market” during Biden administration military withdrawal from the country in 2021 Young believes CNN “ruined his reputation and business” by labeling him an illegal profiteer who exploited “desperate Afghans” during a Nov. 11, 2021 report that first aired on CNN’s “The Lead with Jake Tapper” .”

After a chaotic trial that took place over two weeks in Florida, a jury ruled that Young should be awarded $4 million in lost earnings and $1 million in personal damages, and also found that punitive damages were warranted against CNN. Before the jury could reach a decision on the latter amount, CNN and Young reached a settlement.

JURY FINDS CNN DEFAMATION AGAINST NAVY VETERAN, PUNITIVE DAMAGES SETTLEMENT ACHIEVED

Afterward, Young said he felt “vindication.”

“It’s been a long three years and to get the outcome we wanted, which is a public vindication, is an amazing feeling and I’m glad it’s over and we don’t have to spend any more years and time arguing about the meaning of words,” Young said. Fox News Digital on Friday.

Although it received little press coverage at first, as the trial ended, the case attracted more media attention, and Friday’s verdict was widely covered.

Young’s legal team obtained internal CNN messages through discovery that repeatedly show staff expressing hostility toward the Navy veteran.

Among those who introduced themselves to the jury was one who called him a “s–t-bag” and an “a–hole” and another said he had a “punch face.” It was also found that Alex Marquardta CNN correspondent reporting on air told a colleague “we’re going to catch this Zachary Young mf—er,” which was quoted several times during the case, and said the report would be “your funeral bucko,” referring to Young in a conversation with a colleague.

A CNN spokesman said the network would draw “useful lessons” from the case.

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“We remain proud of our reporters and are 100% committed to strong, fearless and fair reporting on CNN, although of course we will learn from this case any useful lessons,” CNN said in a statement after the settlement.

A CNN employee told Fox News Digital that they don’t think the problems CNN’s reporting has with this story reflect cultural issues within the company.

“The messages were bad … But I don’t think it’s a network-wide cultural thing,” they said. “It seemed to me to be an overzealous reporter – just someone who believed something to be true and framed the information in that context … found information to support it and wasn’t critical of his own conclusions.”

They added that this comes at a time when morale is low on the network, which is struggling with low ratings and poor performance of reported redundancies in progressand there didn’t seem to be an internal “rallying behind” the flag.

A spokesman responded to reports about CNN’s financial health by calling it “very healthy” and noting report showing that parent company Warner Bros. Discovery invested more than 70 million dollars in its digital center.

Another CNN insider told Fox News Digital that they are private messages which came out in the discovery were “cursed things”.

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In the second phase of the trial, CNN’s senior national security editor Thomas Lumley was criticized after internal messages showed he was highly skeptical of the “fairly flawed” report. Lumley was called as a witness after internal messages showed he thought the report was “as full of holes as Swiss cheese”.

Another reporter involved in the story, Katie Bo Lillis, admitted she hadn’t thought about how much the segment might affect Young; the prosecutor said it ruined his reputation and had a drastic effect on his personal life, leaving him depressed and depressed.

Several people at CNN also testified that they disagreed with the network’s decision to apologize in 2022 for suggesting that Young worked on the “black market.”

“CNN reporter’s poor performance on the witness stand . . . boosts Young’s leverage against CNN,” The Washington Post wrote Erik Wemple. “They stumbled on cross-examination; they failed to defend key word choices; and in certain cases, like the Lillis case, they seemed clueless about the impact of their own vast network, which reaches more than 70 million households in the United States. .”

“CNN should be deeply ashamed that despite layers and layers of editorial staff, they couldn’t perform basic journalistic functions or overcome the clear dysfunctionality among overpaid, arrogant TV stars playing reporters and cowardly editors,” said a former CNN staffer who is still on the job. in industry. Fox News Digital.

CNN’s media unit gave scant coverage of the case. Hadas Gold media correspondent published a short news about the verdict, and chief media analyst Brian Stelter briefly mentioned the outcome in his Reliable Sources newsletter Friday, along with one at the start of the trial on Jan. 6. According to Grabien’s search, CNN did not cover the lawsuit or the jury’s decision on air.

After the case ended, Young told Fox News Digital that he had no animosity toward the network, but hoped that CNN and other media organizations had learned from the experience.

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“I hope they take this as an opportunity to look in the mirror and realize that, you know, there’s room for change and improvement, and if that’s the result it’s having on CNN, then maybe others in the media can see that as something which is positive,” he said.