With all eyes on Iran, there is one piece of other news that should not be ignored. Here’s the headline from Fox 19 in Cincinnati, Ohio:
CNN settles lawsuit with Nick Sandmann
The story begins:
“COVINGTON, Ky. (FOX19) – CNN agreed Tuesday to settle a lawsuit with Covington Catholic student Nick Sandmann.
The amount of the settlement was not made public during a hearing at the federal courthouse in Covington, Kentucky.
Sandmann’s lawsuit sought $800 million from CNN, the Washington Post and NBC Universal.
Trial dates are still not set for Sandmann’s lawsuit against NBC Universal and the Washington Post.”
It was almost a year ago – January 18, 2019 – when a group of high school kids from Covington, Kentucky stood waiting for their bus on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. They had come to Washington to participate in the annual March for Life. Out of the blue, they found themselves targeted for taunts and verbal insults from members of the far-left Hebrew Israelites. In the midst of this, Native American “activist” Nathan Phillips appeared pounding a drum. He walked up to 16-year old Nick Sandmann, put the drum inches from Sandmann’s face, singing. Nick simply stood there, smiling. And oh yes, not to be forgotten, Nick along with several of his classmates were wearing the red Trump “Make America Great Again” hats.
In a blink, the images of the two went viral. One media outlet after another presented the story with Nick as the aggressor, a budding, smirking teenage racist. The taunts from the Hebrew Israelites were ignored. In other words, Nick Sandmann was being trashed all over the mainstream media complex – and not a word of what was being said about him was true.
Fortunately, more video surfaced to show the reality, that in the middle of the taunts from the Hebrew Israelites, activist Phillips had sought out Nick, not the other way around. Enter lawyer Lin Wood, who signed on to represent Nick and walloped various media outlets with lawsuits.
One of those outlets was CNN – and now comes the news that a settlement has been reached. As the news story from Fox 19 indicates, the amount settled for has not been made public. But a lawsuit “settled” between two parties usually indicates that an agreed amount of money will change hands.
This is good news, certainly, for young Nick Sandmann. As CNN headlined eventually in 2019:
Report finds no evidence of ‘offensive or racist statements’ by Kentucky students
But it is also a cautionary tale about journalistic outfits getting whatever story they are reporting accurate in the first place. Not only does it damage their credibility – but, as in this case, they can wind up paying for it, literally.
Trump Derangement Syndrome can be expensive.
