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CNN’s Gloating With Fox News Settlement Biting Them in Defamation Case
Following the $787 million defamation settlement between Fox News and Dominion Voting Systems in 2023, CNN did a lot of gloating and spiking the ball as they used it as a cudgel to attack the credibility of their cable news rival. But that celebration seems to have come back to bite them as U.S. Navy veteran and Plaintiff Zachary Young won a motion, on Thursday, to cite CNN’s coverage as evidence that CNN supposedly took the possibility of defamation seriously, in his upcoming $1 billion defamation trial.
In a filing on Monday, Young’s lead counsel, Vel Freedman explained the importance of examining CNN’s coverage of the Fox News settlement:
If CNN recognized the significance of the Dominion settlement as a cautionary tale and yet still chose to defame Young, that fact demonstrates the insufficiency of prior monetary amounts in deterring CNN’s misconduct. Such evidence illuminates the severity of CNN’s disregard for journalistic standards, underscores it knowingly undertook risk for clicks and viewers, and bolsters the argument that punitive award is necessary to deter CNN and others from future defamation.
Freedman also noted that in reporting on the settlement, Jake Tapper (one of the CNN journalists partially responsible for putting CNN in hot water) “made these statements as a CNN agent acting within the scope of his employment. The statement is probative because it is CNN’s acknowledgement of proper journalistic standards.”
In the reporting in question, Tapper proclaimed: “This is a time for all journalists to be extra careful about our own reporting, to make sure that we adhere strictly to facts and cogent analysis.”
In a filing in support of their motion to bar mention of the Fox News-Dominion settlement, on Tuesday, CNN counsel Charles Tobin suggested that Young’s desires to cite CNN’s reporting on the matter “lay bare the fundamental gamesmanship at play.”
However, he did note that “the reporting at issue in the lawsuit was published in November 2021, nearly a year-and-a-half prior to the April 2023 Fox-Dominion settlement” [emphasis his].
But that would also mean that CNN was doing a victory lap and mocking Fox News while they were embroiled in their own possibly costly defamation suit; a suit that has largely gone unmentioned in the wider media industry that reveled in Fox News’s embarrassment.
In his order to allow the mention of the settlement, exclusively obtained by NewsBusters, Judge William Scott Henry of Florida's 14th Circuit Court said CNN’s “general request to exclude all references to the Dominion settlement appears to be overly broad.”
“While the amount of the settlement would not be relevant to assigning an amount if punitive damages were to be awarded in this case, the Court can envision a myriad of ways in which the lawsuit could be brought up during the course of the trial that could be appropriate based on the circumstances,” he continued.
Concluding: “ORDERED AND ADJUDGED that Defendant’s Motion in Limine to Exclude All References to Fox News’ Dominion Settlement, or Prior Statements About Fox News or President Donald Trump is DENIED. However, the subjects and areas of inquiry raised in the Motion may be subject to contemporaneous objection at trial.”
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