CNN changed from a cable news network to a Democrat messaging outfit.
The channel runs smear campaigns against its political opponents.
And a Florida jury holds the fate of CNN in its hands in this awful lawsuit.
CNN faces a defamation lawsuit in Florida
President-elect Donald Trump coined the slogan “fake news” for CNN over the cable news network’s blatant dishonesty during his first term.
CNN has played fast and loose with the truth over the years.
Now, that could cost the beleaguered cable news network in a major lawsuit in Florida.
CNN ran a segment in November 2021 after President Joe Biden’s botched withdrawal from Afghanistan about private military contractors who would evacuate Afghans from the country for a price.
“As CNN’s Alexander Marquardt has discovered, Afghans trying to get out of the country face a black market full of promises, demands of exorbitant fees, and no guarantee of safety or success,” host Jake Tapper said at the introduction to the segment.
Navy veteran Zachary Young was the only person named in the segment.
Young led dangerous rescue missions into Afghanistan for companies like Amazon and Bloomberg to evacuate Afghans.
CNN had graphics that said “black markets” and “exorbitant fees” underneath Young’s face during the segment.
The Navy veteran filed a lawsuit against CNN in 2022 accusing the network of hurting his business with the segment which he claimed falsely accused him of engaging in illegal activity and made him an “international pariah.”
Young will finally get his day in court in Panama City, Florida against CNN.
His legal team will have to prove that CNN intended to cause him harm with the segment and knew the information in it was false but ran with it anyway.
Young’s lawyers discovered internal communications for CNN that called the segment “flawed,” “full of holes,” and “80% emotion, 20% observed fact.”
CNN could get the hammer dropped on it
It is hard to win a defamation case against the media, but Young has some factors working in his favor.
Panama City where the jury is being selected from is home to a Navy facility and the county where it is located went heavily for Trump in the last election.
Roger Williams School of Law David Logan did not mince words about the jury pool CNN is facing.
“You can hardly imagine this case being in a worse place for CNN given this plaintiff, this allegation and this likely jury pool,” Logan stated.
Young tried to get CNN to retract the story, but the network issued an on-air apology and a “correction” that the segment “did not intend to suggest that Mr. Young participated in a black market.”
Florida Circuit Judge William S. Henry ruled that Young’s work in Afghanistan was legal which is a blow to CNN.
A jury could see CNN’s claim of a black market as implied illegal activity.
Ohio University media law professor Aimee Edmondson told the Washington Post that CNN’s internal messages could sway the jury.
“It looks to me like there was enough concern internally that that story wasn’t quite cooked yet, so maybe they needed to take a little bit more time and find a bit more sourcing and maybe reconsider some of their word choices,” Edmonson said. “The argument that it’s sloppy and tabloid-like, from where I sit, not being involved in the case, is a pretty good argument. Is that actual malice? It’s going to be for the jury to say.”
CNN could be facing a day of reckoning for the network’s lies.
DeSantis Daily will keep you up-to-date on any new developments in this story.
