BREAKING: Jury Reaches Verdict in CNN Defamation Case

The jury in the two-week defamation trial between a former military veteran and Mid-East contract evacuation expert, Zachary Young, and news network CNN has returned its verdict. CNN has been found liable for the defamation of Young, and the jury further found that the network acted with malice in its reporting on Young. 

In finding CNN liable for those counts, the jury returned two compensatory damages awards. They find that Young is entitled to $4 million in damages due to the economic impact on his ability to work, and $1 million in emotional damages. The court has taken a recess for the time being and will enter into Phase 2 of the trial, which will concern what is probably the bigger determination: that involving the punitive damages. 

This is where the impact on the network could be really significant, as it concerns a financial burden that is intended to curtail future misbehavior. The pretrial hearings concerning this aspect became contentious at times, as the network was not only hedging on revealing the revenue it generated but the financials of the parent company Warners-Discovery were also called for and the stated figures were said by the defendants to be opaque or unknowable. These hollow claims did not please the court at the time.

During this past week, there has been stirring drama within this case, as numerous figures from CNN were on the stand including reporters Alex Marquardt and Katie Bo Lillis, as well as producers from the network. There was also video testimony presented from Jake Tapper. Tapper delivered some risible moments on video, where he tried to say he was not really sure what his official title is at the network (it is listed on the bio page for him at the network) and then said he was completely unaware what his ratings are for his shows. This last nugget was disproven as Fox News found multiple examples of Tapper crowing about his audience figures on social media.

Things did not bode well for the network when the jury questions were disclosed. As Nick Fondacaro, from MRC-Newsbusters, has been reporting from the courthouse, the jury questions asked of the reporters, Marquardt and Lillis, were rather challenging and revealed the jury leaning towards the belief they had been culpable of defamatory behavior. In contrast, following testimony by CNN’s senior editor Thomas Lumley – who was among the CNN staffers who expressed the Marquardt report was lacking in factual structure — the jury had no further probing.

As it stands right now CNN is bearing a shame that may be bigger than that incurred by Fox News following that network’s out-of-court settlement with Dominion Voting Systems. Following that settlement, many in the press – and Jake Tapper specifically – were heavily critical of Fox News, covering the decision with derisive language and denigrating the network as less than a journalistic source. 

It has been said that Fox deciding to settle was an admission of guilt that it had lied, despite no such admission or ruling being made. Somehow for years, CNN has incurred no such similar scar, despite it settling out of court with Nicolas Sandmann over its coverage of the young man. Here now we have CNN in a court of law found to have been fabricating a news story, and doing so with a clear act of malice. One could argue that this is a finding that bears more weight than the Fox settlement. We now await the second phase of this defamation case to see if results in a higher level of financial punishment.

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