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January 8, 2020

CNN settles with Covington Catholic's Nicholas Sandmann

By Andrea Widburg

In January 2019, the American media disgraced themselves when they savagely attacked a 16-year-old schoolboy, who was wearing a MAGA hat, for smiling nervously when an American Indian got into his face with aggressive drumming.  CNN has now settled for an undisclosed sum the defamation claim that boy brought against it.

Nicholas Sandmann, a junior at Covington Catholic High School in Covington, Kentucky, had journeyed under the school's aegis to Washington, D.C. to participate in the annual March for Life.  To the media, therefore, he was the enemy.

When mainstream media people saw a photograph capturing the moment Sandmann came face to face with activist Nathan Phillips, they went crazy.  Bakari Sellers, a CNN contributor, took one look at the picture and fired off a tweet:

 

 

Ana Navarro-Cárdenas of CNN also had an opinion:

The New York Times ran an article originally entitled "Boys in 'Make America Great Again' Hats Mob Native American Elder at Indigenous People's March," although the article now has the more neutral title "Viral Video Shows Boys in 'Make America Great Again' Hats Surrounding Native Elder."  The Washington Post ran with a slavishly loving article about Phillips: "'It was getting ugly': Native American drummer speaks on his encounter with MAGA-hat-wearing teens."

It turned out the ugliness was all the media's side.  The Covington boys had been patiently waiting to board their bus back to Kentucky while members of the Black Hebrew Israelites stood across from them and systematically hurled verbal abuse at them.  (Black Hebrew Israelite followers are the accused in a recent deadly anti-Semitic shooting in New Jersey.)  Nathan Phillips, who lied about serving in Vietnam, and who is a professional activist, then deliberately marched up to the boys and got in their faces.

Eventually, a full video emerged, showing that Phillips was the aggressor and that Sandmann urged his fellow classmates to be respectful.  Moreover, he was not "smirking," as the media said, but smiling nervously in an uncomfortable situation.  It was that nervous smile that triggered the Left.

After being on the receiving end of appalling abuse from both the media and from activists in the general public, Sandmann's family regrouped and filed lawsuits seeking hundreds of millions of dollars from media outlets.  Sandmann asked for $275 million just from CNN.

Today, CNN settled with Sandmann for an undisclosed sum:

CNN reportedly agreed Tuesday to settle a $275 million lawsuit filed by Covington Catholic student Nicholas Sandmann over the network's coverage of his viral encounter with an elderly Native American activist.

The details of the settlement were not disclosed during proceedings at the federal courthouse in Covington, Kentucky, according to Fox19 in Cincinnati.

[snip]

"Contrary to its 'Facts First' public relations ploy, CNN ignored the facts and put its anti-Trump agenda first in waging a 7-day media campaign of false, vicious attacks against Nicholas, a young boy who was guilty of little more than wearing a souvenir Make America Great Again cap," said the 58-page lawsuit filed in May.

We can only hope that the undisclosed sum was significant.  What happened last January was despicable.  Even had Sandmann acted as badly as the media alleged — and remember that his behavior was exemplary — this was not news.  This was fascist bullying to remind Americans to get in line or be on the receiving end of an overwhelming, and frightening, media vendetta.

Congratulations to young Nicholas.  We hope his other lawsuits also result in sizable settlements that inflict maximum pain on vindictive and irresponsible media outlets.

 

 

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