Marquardt, Tapper, and senior CNN executives took the stand through the two-week trial, offering a window into its rarely-seen newsgathering course of courtesy of e-mails and inside messaging techniques. In a single Marquardt’s messages introduced through the trial, the reporter wrote that he was “going to nail that Zachary Younger mf-er.”
When Younger took the stand, he stated that he turned despondent after the CNN story aired. “I turned an outcast, and that’s what I felt like,” he remarked at one level. “And to a big diploma, I nonetheless do.”
In his closing argument, Axelrod suggested jurors to make use of widespread sense when inspecting the case. “[There is] merely no proof in entrance of you so that you can discover that CNN defamed Mr. Younger,” he argued.
Freedman, in the meantime, used his closing argument to insinuate that CNN was extra all in favour of theatrics than truth-telling. He urged the jury to “repair” what’s unsuitable with the information right now, saying: “You’ve the power to ship the message. Please do it.”
What was the decision?
The jury finally discovered CNN liable, with Younger set to obtain $5 million for ache and struggling, misplaced enterprise alternatives, and extra punitive damages. However CNN reached a settlement with him for an undisclosed quantity quickly after the decision was introduced.
“We stay happy with our journalists and are 100% dedicated to sturdy, fearless, and fair-minded reporting at CNN,” a CNN spokesperson instructed TVNewser after the settlement. “Although we are going to, after all, take what helpful classes we are able to from this case.”
What occurs subsequent?
CNN isn’t the one community with a defamation lawsuit on the docket in 2025. CBS Information is mulling a settlement for its personal defamation case introduced by President Donald Trump over the community’s interview together with his Democratic rival within the election, former Vice President Kamala Harris. Paramount International, CBS Information’ father or mother firm, is at present in search of regulatory approval for its impending merger with Skydance Media.
And the second Trump administration might result in extra defamation instances in opposition to information shops, though the president has famous that he’s nonetheless open to working with the press. “I’m not on the lookout for retribution, grandstanding or to destroy individuals who handled me very unfairly, and even badly past comprehension,” Trump stated throughout a Fox Information interview on Nov. 24.
“I’m all the time seeking to give a second or perhaps a third likelihood,” Trump added. “However by no means prepared to present a fourth likelihood. That’s the place I maintain the road.”
How Trump intends to carry that line is what the press is not sure about going ahead.
One extra revelation from the just-concluded trial is the state of CNN’s stability sheet. The community’s web revenue was minimize in half from $600 million to $300 million between 2021 and 2022, an eyebrow-raising decline that was presumably tied to the closures of CNN+ and HLN. CNN’s income rebounded to over $400 million in 2023.
CNN’s web revenue:
2021: 600 million
2022: 300 million
2023: 400 millionThese are usually not numbers we usually get…
— Jeremy Barr (@jeremymbarr) January 17, 2025
