As their ratings drop even further and their ad revenue falls, this was the last thing the once proud network needed.
But legal experts say it may have been the liberal network’s only way out.
CNN just settled this massive lawsuit and the reasons why are shocking.
By all accounts, CNN had a pretty bad 2019.
The massive news network based out of Atlanta, GA, and once owned by billionaire Ted Turner, saw its standing in the world of “journalism” take some severe hits.
The network was rocked by scandals, saw a severe drop in viewership, and a drastic decrease in ad revenue.
And to really rub salt in the wound, Fox News now beats out CNN across the board, with even some of Fox’s least popular programs beating out CNN’s stalwarts.
And it looks like 2020 isn’t going to be any better.
In breaking news, CNN has decided to settle the multi-million-dollar lawsuit brought against them by Nick Sandmann, the Covington Catholic High School student who was the subject of allegations of bigotry and white supremacy by CNN and other news organizations.
As readers of Deep State Journal will recall, last January a video surfaced of Sandmann wearing an iconic red MAGA hat and smiling while standing face to face with radical leftist and Native American activist Nathan Phillips in Washington DC.
Soon after the video clip surfaced, multiple news agencies reported that Sandmann and his fellow classmates, who were on a school trip, had taunted and mocked the man about his American Indian heritage.
That’s right, the media pulled the “racist” card before even the elected Democrats did.
Despite saying that neither he nor his fellow classmates did anything wrong, they were attacked mercilessly by the media, elected officials, Hollywood, and radical activists.
Sandmann and some of the students even received death threats.
But then, an unedited version of the video footage came out – and it showed that Phillips actually approached Sandmann while his class was walking away from the violent group, the Black Hebrew Israelites, which had been hurling racial slurs at the Catholic school students.
And a private investigation firm released a report stating they could find no evidence that Sandmann, or any of the Covington students, launched racial slurs at Phillips or the Black Hebrew Israelites.
The media had spun it all into a hoax.
So, Sandmann sued.
Sandmann filed the lawsuit last March, saying multiple news stories about him and his classmates were defamatory, and that the network would’ve known them be false had they conducted “any reasonable efforts to verify their accuracy.”
The lawsuit against CNN sought roughly $75 million for damage to Sandmann’s reputation and $200 million in punitive damages. It is unclear how much CNN agreed to settle for.
But one thing is clear.
Despite CNN claiming from the beginning that the accusations against them were completely false, they suddenly agreed to settle after the judge’s ruling opened up the possibility of massive discovery against the network.
This discovery would’ve included emails, text messages, phone transcripts and internal documents that could have likely implicated CNN in a wide array of bad behavior.
But since they settled, we may never know the answer. Still, the question remains—what’s CNN got to hide?