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The Power of Truth - US Navy Veteran Defeats Media Giant CNN
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PANAMA CITY, FL - Looking back on Friday, January 17, a jury in Panama City found that CNN had defamed U.S. Navy veteran and private security contractor Zachary Young in a segment about evacuations from Afghanistan in November 2021. Young argued that CNN portrayed him as illegally profiteering off vulnerable Afghan people during the withdrawal of American forces, irreparably damaging his business and reputation.
Zachary Young is the president of the Florida-based security consulting firm Nemex Enterprises Inc. He and his business became involved in the evacuation of people fleeing Afghanistan during the US withdrawal and Taliban takeover in 2021.
CNN aired a segment in November of the same year that explored accusations of profiteering facing different contractors. The segment, narrated by correspondent Alexander Marquardt, claimed that Nemex had charged exorbitant fees for Afghan evacuations. A photograph of Young was shown on screen, alongside captions referring to “black markets” and “exorbitant fees.” These fees were allegedly $75,000 for vehicle transportation to Pakistan or $14,500 per person to the United Arab Emirates.
Young received considerable backlash after the segment aired. He claimed that the content and language used defamed him and his business. He argued that his services were contracted by other organizations, not targeted at vulnerable Afghan people.
CNN faced significant criticism after Young’s claims, and issued an on-air apology in March 2022, clarifying that they had no intent to implicate Young in illegal activity and expressing regret for the harm caused.
Young felt that the apology was insufficient, as it had failed to reach the same audience as the original broadcast. Florida law mandates that corrections to content reach the same audience as the original defamatory broadcast. Young filed a defamation lawsuit against the network in June 2022.
The trial took place over the course of two weeks in a Panama City courtroom. The judge ruled in the pre-trial rulings that Young did not illegally profiteer off of the evacuations, as implied in the news segment. The court also found that the apology and corrections made by CNN were not adequate by the standards of Florida law.
Marquardt testified during the trial, who, revealed during the litigation, wrote in private messages, “We gonna nail this Zachary Young,” then labeled him an expletive. “It was not a hit piece, I don’t do hit pieces,” Marquardt testified.
More private messages and emails were revealed during the trial, particularly those within CNN questioning the accuracy of the original story. Thomas Lumley, Senior National Security Editor for CNN’s digital operations, wrote in one message that “the story is full of holes like Swiss cheese.”
In the end, CNN was ordered to pay Young $5 million in compensatory damages.
“We remain proud of our journalists and are 100 percent committed to strong, fearless and fair-minded reporting at CNN,” a network spokeswoman expressed in a statement for the website Mediaite, “though we will of course take what useful lessons we can from this case.”
Defamation lawsuits against major news networks are rare, due to the high burdens of proof and free speech protections. A controversy on this scale could set a precedent for similar cases involving high-profile news outlets.
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