A Florida jury found CNN liable for defamation in a case involving U.S. Navy veteran Zachary Young. The case stems from a 2021 report that wrongly suggested he profited illegally from evacuating people from Afghanistan, something the Biden administration failed to address appropriately before their botched withdrawal.
After determining that CNN’s reporting had defamed him, the jury awarded Young $5 million in compensatory damages.
Young had argued that the network “destroyed his reputation and business” by branding him an “illegal profiteer” who exploited “desperate Afghans.”
Those claims surfaced during a November 11, 2021, report by Alex Marquardt that first aired on CNN’s The Lead with Jake Tapper.
In a statement to Fox News, CNN said they will learn some lessons after defaming the veteran, but they remain proud of their alleged journalists.
“We remain proud of our journalists and are 100% committed to strong, fearless and fair-minded reporting at CNN, though we will of course take what useful lessons we can from this case,” they said in a statement.
CNN Argues That They Broke In Defamation Case
CNN hasn’t engaged in fair-minded reporting in decades. This defamation trial was more proof of that. They saw a man trying to aid people left behind by President Biden, realized that, by extension, this was a black eye on the administration, and decided they had to bury him.
Alleged “journalists” are an activist arm of the Democrat Party, and nothing more.
Providing some level of amusement, however, was that after awarding Young $5 million in damages, the jury was set to level the network with punitive damages, which would be significant. And CNN begged for leniency, citing their own financial ruin over the past few years.
Court documents showed that the network’s revenue tanked roughly $400 million in three years.
“So you’ve made a decision that CNN’s liable. But that doesn’t mean that there isn’t a reasonable path forward,” CNN’s lawyer argued to the jury. “Over the next few hours … you’re going to hear about CNN’s net worth. And you’re going to see that the net worth of the company is in subtle decline.”
$400 million isn’t exactly subtle.
CNN’s lawyer argues against the network being hit with punitive damages (after it was found liable for defaming Navy veteran Zachary Young) by saying it’d harm the company financially and hinder its ability to report on major breaking news events like wildfires and crises around… pic.twitter.com/TjEEb8ZN8D
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) January 17, 2025
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Won’t Be Able To Deliver The News
Further making it amusing is the fact that CNN, having just been found liable for defamation, felt that any excessive punishment would be unjust because it would hinder their ability to deliver further biased news coverage.
“When natural disasters break out, CNN is there, and that’s hurricanes, that’s wildfires, that’s earthquakes. When conflicts erupt, like some of the ones we’ve heard in this case, CNN’s there,” the lawyer argued. “And providing all that content, that really important content, is expensive.”
A conflict erupted in Afghanistan. CNN was there. And they were found liable for defamation of a hero. That’s the kind of coverage they want to continue.
Before the jury could decide on punitive damages, CNN and Young reached a settlement for an undisclosed amount.
The settlement was quickly announced after an expert witness suggested $150 million was a reasonable punishment for the network. Making it likely that the penalty was somewhere in that ballpark.
