A Florida jury on Friday found CNN liable for defaming a Navy veteran who helped evacuate people from Afghanistan in the wake of President Biden's disastrous deportation.
The lawsuit also reveals previously secret facts about CNN's revenue, revealing that CNN reported profits of $600 million in 2021, $300 million in 2022, and $400 million in 2023. It became.
Records also show that the network whose ratings were challenged saw its revenue decline by $400 million, or 18%, over the three-year period.
After a two-week trial in Panama City state court, a six-member jury returned the stunning verdict in less than nine hours.
A jury awarded security contractor Zachary Young $5 million, and punitive damages were being discussed when CNN reached an undisclosed settlement.
Louis G. Adolfsen, a defamation lawyer and founding member of the law firm of Merito & Adolfsen PC in Manhattan, said that given that Panama City is a “rural or semi-rural” area with jurors, , estimated that the settlement could be as high as $25 million. Pool is likely to be hostile to CNN.
“If we analogize this, [President-elect Donald] Trump is being sued in New York,” Adolfsen told the Post.
Young accused CNN of ruining his business by putting his face on screen in an article about the “black market” of smuggling desperate Afghans for high prices as the Taliban regained control. .
He explained that he suffers from severe depression and panic attacks as a direct result of CNN's defamatory work. The veteran also told the jury that the television broadcast cost him millions of dollars in potential revenue.
He argued that his business targets sponsors who can afford to pay for the removal of Afghans, rather than charging individual Afghans as much as $10,000 for their services.
CNN said it was wrong to use the term “black market” but insisted its reporting on Young was accurate.
At the trial in a conservative part of the country, Young's lawyers urged jurors to send a message to the media. Questions posed by jurors during the trial showed some hostility, leading some to wonder if CNN was treating the plaintiffs as guilty until proven innocent.
Private messages were also part of the trial, with the plaintiffs showing internal messages in which CNN reporter Alex Marquardt made profane and unflattering comments about Young. Marquardt testified at trial that his story was “not a hit piece.”
After the ruling, a CNN spokesperson said: “We are proud of our journalists and at CNN we are 100% committed to strong, fearless and fair-minded reporting. There are, of course, valuable lessons to be learned from this case. “I'm going to get it,” he told the Post.
Defamation trials are rare in the United States, in part because strong constitutional protections for the press make defamation difficult to prove. From a media perspective, taking a lawsuit to a judge or jury is a risk that many executives don't want to take.
Last month, ABC News announced that rather than defend the statements George Stephanopoulos made about Trump last spring, the former president's honor was waived by paying $15 million for the presidential library and another $1 million in legal fees. They agreed to cancel the defamation suit.
In the end, ABC's parent company, Walt Disney, concluded that, win or lose, a continued battle with Trump was not worth it.
