The Great 8
Repackaging the news is becomingly increasingly more problematic for the media. And proving increasingly more expensive.Zachary Young appeared to be such an easy target.
He is a retired U.S. Navy veteran who had the temerity to fight back when CNN featured him in a blatantly false hit piece. The veteran — who earned an exemplary service record — was portrayed as part of a “black market” and an “exploiter” of innocent Afghanis who were attempting to flee their country. Young sued CNN for “smearing his reputation” and attempting to portray him as a “liar.”
The broadcast failed to inform viewers that Young managed to rescue dozens of Afghanis while not taking a penny from them. He agreed to the high-risk work assisting the victims owing to his association with non-profits and different corporations.
The most revealing aspect of the court case was evidence introduced — unwittingly — by CNN’s very own staff. Their texts and e-mails proved invaluable: They provided the smoking gun (or guns) demonstrating the network staff’s acts of malice and wanton disregard for fair and balanced news. Young, in a hard to win case, received a verdict in his favor, with jurors awarding him $4 million in economic damages and $1 million in emotional damages.
The defense appeared defenseless as the case unfolded. Reporter Alex Marquardt, chief among Young’s detractors, wrote an in-house text claiming: He “wanted to nail this Zachary Young m-fu****.” And he suggested “Young’s funeral” would be the outcome of the broadcast. In a typical ploy, Young was given two hours to respond to inquiries, but he made the deadline.
“Fu***** Young just texted,” Marquardt wrote to a colleague. There wasn’t a need — according to CNN’s reporting — to incorporate Young’s explanation of doing his best to align corporate sponsors and resources with those Afghans most in need.
That was all well and good, but such facts failed to fit CNN’s narrative. For instance, shortly after promising to “nail” Young, Marquardt heard back from his like-minded colleague, CNN editor Matthew Philips, who wrote back indicating his being on board with Marquardt’s sentiment: “Gonna hold you to that cowboy!” Another CNN staffer labeling the veteran a “shit” didn’t help their case.
The lawsuit, among others, demonstrates a shift in today’s culture. Conservatives whining about “run-away bias” and “brain-impaired” propagandists have given way to a new strategy. Fighting back in the courts has proven far more effective than lodging complaints on social media.
ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, whose bias was never in question, was on the receiving end of a $15 million lawsuit. He was warned not to use the term “rapist” in connection with an alleged “sexual assault” case regarding President Trump. The president is alleged to have “groped and assaulted” a woman in a dressing room of a department store under impossible conditions nearly thirty years ago.
Efforts to destroy Trump proved much too tantalizing for Stephanopoulos, and he used the term “rapist.” The network settled the $15 million defamation lawsuit.
Repackaging the news is becomingly increasingly more problematic for the media. And proving increasingly more expensive.
<img alt captext="The Great 8” class=”post-image-right” src=”https://conservativenewsbriefing.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/media-titans-rattled-by-lawsuits.jpg” width=”450″>Management at CBS’s “60 Minutes” is under fire, by President Trump, for allegedly “deceptively editing” an interview with (then) presidential candidate Kamala Harris. What the candidate said and what appeared in the broadcast is now at the heart of a case alleging “election interference,” as claimed by President Trump. Harris’ trademark word salad response to a crucial question about the Middle East was doctored to where her meandering, nonsensical answer disappeared from the broadcast. A more cogent answer was spliced in.
President Trump’s new choice to head the FCC, Brendan Carr, reopened the case and demanded the release of the damning full interview on Wednesday.
The parent company of CBS, Paramount Global, is reportedly in talks with President Trump regarding the $10 billion lawsuit: Any potential agreement would serve as another step to holding the media accountable.
It would be too much to expect fair and balanced reporting, but now top management at media outlets are issuing warnings about Trump-bashing. CNN’s editorial manager, Mark Thompson, warned his staff — including top anti-Trump bashers Jake Tapper and Anderson Cooper — to “not express outrage” when covering Trump’s inauguration.
Some might call it a start. Or an improvement over the years of listening to corrupt reporters yammer on about the “Russian-Collusion-Delusion” hoax. The new low in reporting resulted in legacy media handing out awards to “top reporters,” and failing to apologize for spreading serial lies and paranoia.
MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, the “Queen of the Russia Hoax,” ramped up the hysteria nightly for more than two years, enthralling her audience with repeated muckraking installments. These serial fabrications tantalized a gullible audience turning in nightly to hear more developments: They ranged from corrupt tales about Putin’s (nonexistent) tapes compromising Trump to rumor-peddler Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) claiming to have (never materialized) “circumstantial evidence” of the Trump campaign’s Russian collusion.
Reputations come and go, along with ratings. Maddow lost 20 percent of her audience with the release of the “Mueller Report,” forcing her gullible audience to come to terms with the fact that the Queen of the Russia Hoax was herself a masterful hoaxer.
She merely heads a long line of reporters who were never held accountable for working 24/7 to destroy the President’s reputation, and putting forth endless rumors calling for his impeachment.
If ever there was a time of self-reflection, now would be that time. But don’t count on it. CNN’s Jim Acosta, a counterpart to Maddow as the “King of Trump Bashers,” has followed in her footsteps with his declining career. But his situation is more dire. He wasn’t subjected to a salary cut (like Maddow), but was reduced to the graveyard shift, moving his prime-time 10 a.m. slot, to starting at midnight until 2:00 a.m. Or, as President Trump opined, the “Death Valley” shift. He chose to resign instead.
His final, bitter message to his audience was an excellent indicator of top broadcasters remaining in denial as to why their audiences are leaving in droves. He advised, without a hint of irony, for his listeners to “hold on to the truth and to hope.” But most of all, “don’t give in to fear.”
This advice is from the newscaster who called President Trump “highly irresponsible,” for saying, after being shot in the head, that the Secret Service had failed to protect him. Huh! Acosta must have missed the startling fact the Secret Service failed to surveil the immediate area, including the nearby building where the shooter was positioned.
Acosta could be counted on to follow the media herd when it came to hurling the most popular invective against the president. He labeled the president a “racist” for calling the COVID virus, which originated in the Wuhan lab, a “Chinese Coronavirus.” The list of Acosta’s most jaw-dropping unprofessional lapses is extensive, but the “Top 10 Best Jim Acosta Moments” was made available by the Federalist.
There is some bright news for formerly top-rated broadcasters.
Rachel Maddow and several of her colleagues are managing to retain their anchor chairs. Their glory days may be over, but they carry on despite massive layoffs, pay reductions, and audiences abandoning them in record numbers.
Perhaps they’ve reached tipping point: The new wave of lawsuits may prove to be the incentive required for reporters to return to reporting the news — without fear or favor. Or, put in a more obvious context, in an equal and fair way.
Image: The Great 8
