Kamala’s Edited Brilliance: The $10 Billion Bloopers Reel

Corporate media had a difficult week. Reuters ran a story yesterday afternoon headlined, “CNN settles with US Navy veteran after $5 million defamation verdict.”

CNN loses another demafamation lawsuit!

Jury found CNN liable for Defaming U.S. Navy Veteran who helped with Afghanistan evacuation

When are people in Canada going to start suing CBC like Jordan Peterson, Danielle Smith or Trump himself? pic.twitter.com/MPxMGJuzWm

— Contrarian (@ContrarianTribe) January 18, 2025

During the Biden Administration’s sudden disastrous surrender in Afghanistan, Navy veteran and former CIA agent Zachary Young helped with the emergency rescue of stranded U.S. workers. Zach charged corporate clients up to $14,500 per rescued employee. But later, CNN falsely told viewers that Zach had run a “black market” of extorting desperate Afghanis, like a cruel cartel coyote or something.

CNN’s fraudulent exposé wrecked his career. So Zach sued.

As I have often said, the discovery did CNN in. Internal CNN communications uncovered during the litigation showed CNN correspondent Alexander Marquardt slandering Mr. Young to his colleagues. In one email, Marquardt wrote, “We gonna nail this Zachary Young,” and referred to him with a highly inappropriate expletive. In other messages, CNN staff members admitted Marquardt’s report was “flawed.”

“Flawed” is one way of putting it. You might choose a different word.

In the New York Times version, the Gray Lady glumly noted that “public opinion has turned sharply against news organizations.” You don’t say. Whatever could have caused that sharp turn in public opinion? (The Times wasn’t feeling introspective and didn’t speculate.) Could it be that the public doesn’t think corporate news should be trying to “nail” anybody, but rather, just report the news fairly and accurately?

Anyway, the Bay County, Florida, jury returned its delightful verdict, awarding Zach $5 million in defamation damages, and finding CNN liable for punitive damages. A panicked CNN immediately settled for an undisclosed amount. The reason they panicked is that the jury would have next deliberated on how much to award in punitive damages. By law, they could have awarded triple damages, or another $15 million, or an amount necessary to prevent the conduct from reoccurring, based on CNN’s net worth.

Zach was probably smart to settle, since he got his money now rather than waiting for a long appeals process. My guess is CNN paid more than $5 million. They weren’t in a position to haggle much.

That’s not all. You might recall that last month, ABC settled a different defamation case with President Trump for $15 million dollars. Well, guess what? It’s happening again. The Wall Street Journal ran a story yesterday headlined, “Exclusive | CBS Owner Discusses Settling Trump Suit, With Merger Review on Tap.”

According to “people familiar with the situation,” top executives at Paramount Global, which owns CBS, internally discussed offering to settle a lawsuit against CBS by President Trump for election interference, which seeks $10 billion dollars in damages.

Maybe CBS could just pay off one of Trump’s lawfare lawsuits.

Apparently, Paramount has some pending regulatory issues, and the media giant needs to get on the new Administration’s good side. “Executives at the company,” explained the Journal, “were gaming out options to reduce friction with the incoming administration.”

The lawsuit arose from a CNN interview with Kamala Harris that was heavily edited to make the joyful Vice President look smarter than she really is. Fake news. So the media executives are considering possible operational changes that would “shore up” CBS News’s editorial accuracy and “reassure” Trump’s team, such as by adding new review processes or releasing the full, unedited transcript of its “60 Minutes” interview with Harris.

Freeing the transcript might interest historians, but the electoral horse is out of the political barn. She lost anyway.

One paragraph from the story stuck out. It showed the real problem: Whenever Democrats have their hands on the wheels of power, they freely punish corporations that don’t cooperate politically. As another example, the Journal reported that, if CNN helps Trump in any way, pouty progressives will punish it however they can:

 
That aside, this story is more good news. News media enjoyed decades of formal and informal protection from defamation liability and accuracy accountability. It was nearly impossible to win one of these cases, and even when you did, the skeptical courts of appeal were likely to miniaturize your verdict.

But as this week’s developments show, things are very different now.

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