{"id":28861,"date":"2025-01-18T08:26:51","date_gmt":"2025-01-18T13:26:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/?p=28861"},"modified":"2025-01-18T08:26:51","modified_gmt":"2025-01-18T13:26:51","slug":"cnn-reaches-5m-defamation-settlement-with-us-navy-veteran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/2025\/01\/18\/cnn-reaches-5m-defamation-settlement-with-us-navy-veteran\/","title":{"rendered":"CNN reaches $5m defamation settlement with US Navy veteran"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A US Navy veteran who helped Afghans escape after the Taliban takeover in 2021 has won at least $5m (\u00a34.1m) after a jury said he was defamed by American broadcaster CNN.<\/b><\/p>\n

Zachary Young ran a private security firm, Nemex Enterprises, which extracted people from Afghanistan in exchange for fees sometimes totalling thousands of dollars, paid for by sponsors.<\/p>\n

A CNN report aired in 2021 showed his face and described an alleged “black market” and said people were preying on escaping Afghans.<\/p>\n

A six-person jury in Florida ruled in favour of Mr Young and ordered CNN to pay millions in compensatory damages.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The CNN report, broadcast on the network’s The Lead with Jake Tapper show, said “desperate Afghans” were being “exploited” and faced “demands for exorbitant fees.<\/p>\n

At trial, several internal messages were entered into evidence, including CNN employees talking about Mr Young in derogatory terms as well as other journalists who expressed reservations about the report.<\/p>\n

Mr Young denied any exploitation and said Nemex’s fees were paid for by corporations and charities who were willing to support at-risk Afghans being removed from the country after the chaotic US military withdrawal.<\/p>\n

He said he did not charge Afghans themselves and specifically discouraged individuals from contacting his firm.<\/p>\n

Although CNN issued a partial apology in March 2022 and said it regretted using the term “black market”, the network said it stood by its reporting.<\/p>\n

It said in a statement on Friday: “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.”<\/p>\n

Defamation cases are rare under US free-speech law, however in court filings Young argued that CNN gave him only two hours to respond to questions, and failed to perform basic checks.<\/p>\n

“From the very beginning, it wasn’t about money, it was about holding [CNN] accountable and exposing what they did to me,” Young told the BBC by phone on Friday. “I’ve been vindicated.”<\/p>\n

He said his firm rescued 23 people \u2013 including a baby – in the aftermath of the US withdrawal, but since the CNN report, his business has dried up.<\/p>\n

“I’m hoping that might change after today,” he said.<\/p>\n

A separate hearing had been scheduled to determine punitive damages \u2013 payouts designed to punish as a warning against future behaviour.<\/p>\n

However, after the verdict, the two sides reached a settlement for an undisclosed amount of punitive damages.<\/p>\n

Source: bbc.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A US Navy veteran who helped Afghans escape after the Taliban takeover in 2021 has won at least $5m (\u00a34.1m) after a jury said he was defamed by American broadcaster CNN. Zachary Young ran a […]<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28862,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[109,2,3],"tags":[180,1023],"class_list":{"0":"post-28861","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headline","8":"category-news","9":"category-usa","10":"tag-cnn","11":"tag-defamation","12":"pmpro-has-access"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28861","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28861"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28861\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28863,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28861\/revisions\/28863"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28862"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28861"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}