CNN defamed an Afghan war veteran by falsely accusing him of running a ‘black market’ for Afghanistan evacuations and must pay him $5 million damages.
Jurors found the embattled network liable for defaming Zachary Young, 49, at a Florida courthouse Friday afternoon.
Young, who sued for $15 million, will take home even more cash than the amount so-far awarded, as it does not take into account punitive damages.
Young is a US Navy veteran turned security consultant helped evacuate Afghan people to safety following President Biden’s disastrous withdrawal in 2021.
He was named in a CNN segment claiming private contractors were charging up to $14,000 for ‘black market’ evacuations.
Young said he’d never accepted any money from Afghans who needed rescued and relied on corporate and nongovernmental organization sponsorships to help people flee.
Friday’s verdict further weakens CNN just days ahead of Trump’s inauguration for his second term as presidency.
The network has been battling sagging ratings and vows from conservative lawmakers including Trump himself to crack down on what they claim is an unfair liberal bias.
Zachary Young, pictured, has won $5 million from CNN after suing the network for defamation
CNN aired this image of Zachary Young with a strap on the bottom that read: ‘Afghans trying to flee Taliban face Black Markets’. He is suing the network for tying him to the black markets
Kabul is pictured during the chaotic 2021 US withdrawal, which saw the Taliban immediately surge back to power
The defamatory broadcast was screened in November 2021 and opened with Jake Tapper claiming Afghans trying to flee the surging Taliban ‘face a black market full of promises, demand of exorbitant fees and no guarantee of safety or success.’
Tapper then cut to CNN’s chief security correspondent Alex Marquardt claiming that an Afghan man in the US had found people on Facebook charging $10,000 to evacuate relatives.
Marquardt claimed ‘desperate Afghans are now being exploited’ by ‘exorbitant and impossible’ amounts.
It then displayed a LinkedIn post from Zachary Young advertising his services.
Young filed his defamation lawsuit in 2022 and successfully alleged that CNN had damaged his reputation by lying that he was taking advantage of the withdrawal.
After being threatened by Young, CNN made an apology, issued a retraction and removed the segment from public view.
But in depositions screened during the hearing, senior staff say the network should never have apologized to Young.
On Tuesday, two days before both sides’ closing arguments, the jury was shown a series of clips – three of which showed depositions from CNN Executive Vice President of Editorial Virginia Moseley, Supervising Producer Michael Callahan, and Senior Vice President of Washington Newsgathering Adam Levine, respectively.
Each said the same – that they did not believe such an apology was necessary, due to Marquardt’s segment making no such charge. The on-screen banner did.
The term ‘black market” was also used in the introduction of the report, when it first ran on ‘The Lead With Jake Tapper.’
‘In general, I don’t,’ Moseley said in December 2023 when asked by Young’s legal team whether she agreed with the 2022 apology.
‘The reason I don’t agree with it is I don’t have, as we talked about earlier, the negative connotation of “black market,”‘ she insisted, offering her argument.
CNN host Pamela Brown told viewers apologized on behalf of the network on-air
‘So I’m not exactly sure, like I wouldn’t, you know – I don’t consider black market in a negative connotation.
‘I wouldn’t agree with the correction,’ she finished.
A few months earlier, in October, Callahan aired a similar stance – saying he defines ‘black market’ as an ‘unregulated market’ and not a disreputable one.
He argued such a term correctly applied to the situation then occurring in Kabul, and that the phrase black market did not have any particular connotation.
When asked what he believed the term meant, he insisted: ‘An unregulated market for goods or services.’
In June of last year, Levine said the apology was made in hopes of quashing the ‘potential for a lawsuit’, while spending multiple minutes dodging questions about whether CNN believed Young’s concern had been ‘reasonable’ enough to demand the apology.
‘This was a decision made for legal reasons, and the correction was issued at the direction of our legal department,’ Levine said,
‘So CNN thinks that the decision by the legal department was the right one for the company based on them being our legal department.’
When asked whether a correction was due, he said ‘at least our legal department felt that way.’
“It was an error based on the fact that Mr. Young felt and [Young’s attorney Vel Freedman] conveyed that that was how it was received by Mr. Young,’ he further explained. ‘And they took issue with that.’
CNN journalist Fuzz Hogan, a senior editor tasked with fact-checking the report, said a few days earlier that he also didn’t agree that CNN should have apologized, and repeatedly called Brown’s apology a ‘correction.’
‘I didn’t think that the correction was necessary,’ Hogan said, delivering this testimony before the jury.
CNN correspondent Marquardt, the one who led the report about Young, said the same – before indicating he had not problem the network eventually apologized.
CNN producer Michael Conte similarly said he did ‘not necessarily’ agree with the apology, at one point adding, “I do not believe [the report] was an error.’
Young, meanwhile, claims the report falsely painted him as an ‘illegal profiteer’ exploiting ‘desperate Afghans’ with ‘exorbitant’ fees – mentioning how he had been advertising his services online $14,500.