Explainer: What To Know About CNN’s Defamation Case and Verdict

On Jan. 17, CNN announced that it had settled a defamation case with Navy veteran and security consultant Zachary Young. The trial unfolded in a Florida courthouse during the first two weeks of January and ended with a jury finding the network liable and awarding Young $5 million in damages.

CNN joins Fox News, Newsmax, and ABC News in choosing to settle a high-profile defamation case. Unlike those other networks, though, CNN allowed the trial to proceed before ultimately settling.

Here is TVNewser’s breakdown of the closely watched trial.

Why did Young take CNN to court?

In August 2021, the United States military pulled out of Afghanistan after a nearly two-decade stay in that country. Amidst the chaos of the withdrawal, Afghan locals who had assisted U.S. troops were seeking a way out of the country, fearing prosecution from the Taliban.

On Nov. 11, 2021, CNN’s The Lead with Jake Tapper featured a report from Alex Marquardt that revealed how certain American contractors were charging Afghan nationals as much as $10,000 in fees for safe passage to other nations. Young’s face was shown during the report above a lower third that detailed the exorbitant costs of the “black market” that existed within that country during that period. He was the only private contractor named in CNN’s piece.  

But Young claimed his business never took payments from individuals in Afghanistan. Instead, he worked with sponsorships from prominent corporate clients, including Audible and Bloomberg. The online version of CNN’s story notably did not indirectly or directly tie Young to the smuggling black market.

After the story aired, Young and his legal team threatened CNN with legal action if the network did not offer a correction. Although CNN made an on-air apology to Young in March 2022, that was deemed insufficient, and a lawsuit was filed that September.

What happened during the trial?

The trial began on Jan. 6 in a Panama City, FL, courtroom presided over by Judge William Henry of the 14th Judicial Circuit.

In his opening statement, CNN’s lead attorney, David Axelrod—no relation to the on-air analyst—described the network’s reporting as “tough, fair, and accurate.”

But Kyle Roche, one of Young’s attorneys, countered in his opening statement, saying: “Overnight, [Young] went from patriot to criminal, and his career as a private intelligence and security consultant has not recovered. CNN’s reckless journalism stole Zach’s income and reputation.”

Vel Freedman, Young’s other attorney, added that CNN willfully damaged his client, costing him millions of dollars and causing irreparable personal harm.

Marquardt, Tapper, and senior CNN executives took the stand during the two-week trial, providing a window into its rarely-seen newsgathering process courtesy of e-mails and internal messaging systems. In one of Marquardt’s messages presented during the trial, the reporter wrote that he was “going to nail that Zachary Young mf-er.”

When Young took the stand, he said that he became despondent after the CNN story aired. “I became an outcast, and that’s what I felt like,” he remarked at one point. “And to a large degree, I still do.”

In his closing argument, Axelrod advised jurors to use common sense when examining the case. “[There is] simply no evidence in front of you for you to find that CNN defamed Mr. Young,” he argued.

Freedman, meanwhile, used his closing argument to insinuate that CNN was more interested in theatrics than truth-telling. He urged the jury to “fix” what is wrong with the news today, saying: “You have the ability to send the message. Please do it.”

What was the verdict?

The jury ultimately found CNN liable, with Young set to receive $5 million for pain and suffering, lost business opportunities, and additional punitive damages. But CNN reached a settlement with him for an undisclosed amount soon after the verdict was announced.

“We remain proud of our journalists and are 100% committed to strong, fearless, and fair-minded reporting at CNN,” a CNN spokesperson told TVNewser after the settlement. “Though we will, of course, take what useful lessons we can from this case.”

What happens next? 

CNN isn’t the only network with a defamation lawsuit on the docket in 2025. CBS News is mulling a settlement for its own defamation case brought by President Donald Trump over the network’s interview with his Democratic rival in the election, former Vice President Kamala Harris. Paramount Global, CBS News’ parent company, is currently seeking regulatory approval for its impending merger with Skydance Media.

And the second Trump administration may lead to more defamation cases against news outlets, although the president has noted that he is still open to working with the press. “I am not looking for retribution, grandstanding or to destroy people who treated me very unfairly, or even badly beyond comprehension,” Trump said during a Fox News interview on Nov. 24.

“I am always looking to give a second or even a third chance,” Trump added. “But never willing to give a fourth chance. That is where I hold the line.”

How Trump intends to hold that line is what the press is unsure about going forward.

One additional revelation from the just-concluded trial is the state of CNN’s balance sheet. The network’s net income was cut in half from $600 million to $300 million between 2021 and 2022, an eyebrow-raising decline that was possibly tied to the closures of CNN+ and HLN. CNN’s profits rebounded to over $400 million in 2023.

CNN’s net income:

2021: 600 million
2022: 300 million
2023: 400 million

These are not numbers we normally get…

— Jeremy Barr (@jeremymbarr) January 17, 2025

A CNN spokesperson told TVNewser that the financial numbers made available during the case “represent the Plaintiff’s interpretation of a subset of data as presented in litigation, and they do not represent financial data for the whole of CNN’s business.”

CNN’s parent company, Warner Bros. Discovery, recently announced a corporate restructuring that created separate operating divisions for its cable and streaming businesses. That came on the heels of NBCUniversal cleaving its cable news networks—MSNBC and CNBC—into a separate SpinCo entity.

CNN’s future is tied into WBD’s plans for its cable networks and whether it decides to spin them off or sell them. The outlet is already in the process of building up its digital business under president Mark Thompson and is seeking new sources of revenue as consumers continue to move away from legacy cable subscriptions.