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The case, which involved a 2021 segment about a private security contractor in Afghanistan, played out as media organizations face more legal and political pressures.
Jan. 17, 2025Updated 5:20 p.m. ET
A jury in Florida on Friday ordered CNN to pay $5 million for defaming a private security contractor in a five-minute segment that ran on the network in November 2021.
CNN settled the lawsuit hours later for an undisclosed sum, before the jury had an opportunity to award additional punitive damages in the case. Those damages could have been far higher than the initial figure awarded by the jury.
News organizations are facing an increasingly adverse legal and political environment. There are robust First Amendment protections for journalists, and plaintiffs in defamation cases must prove that a news outlet published false information despite knowing the information was wrong.
But public opinion has turned sharply against news organizations, just as financial constraints on the industry’s business model have made it tougher to fend off suits. ABC News surprised industry observers last month when it agreed to pay $15 million to settle a defamation claim brought by President-elect Donald J. Trump.
“We remain proud of our journalists and are 100 percent committed to strong, fearless and fair-minded reporting at CNN,” a network spokeswoman said in a statement, “though we will of course take what useful lessons we can from this case.”
The CNN case was concluded after a two-week trial in a Panama City, Fla., courtroom, where lawyers for the contractor, Zachary Young, argued that the network had falsely accused him of illegally participating in a “black market” for exfiltration services in Afghanistan after the withdrawal of American forces.
