Jurors are urged to ‘send a message’ to the media

A lawyer urged jurors on Tuesday to “send a message to the mainstream media” by finding that CNN defamed a security contractor in a 2021 report on Afghan refugees.

Zachary Young is suing the Panama City, Florida-based network, claiming he was wrongly portrayed as an illegal “black marketer” in the wake of the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan by offering to move refugees out of the country for $14,500 each.

During his opening statement on Tuesday, Young’s attorney, Kyle Roche, argued that CNN’s reporting was “reckless” with the facts, and that the network was “out to destroy Zach’s reputation.”

“They didn’t care about the truth,” he said. “They cared about theater and about ratings.”

Roche argued that judges can “change an industry” by sending a message that will be heard by “every news organization in America.”

“Reckless journalism is un-American,” he argued. “It is dangerous, and if media companies engage in theater in the newsroom, Americans will hold them accountable in court.”

The trial is being held at a courthouse in Bay County, on the Florida Panhandle. It comes a month after Disney agreed to a $15 million settlement with newly elected President Donald Trump to resolve a defamation suit against ABC and George Stephanopoulos. Trump has vowed to “fix” the press with additional lawsuits, including one he filed against the Des Moines Register over an inaccurate poll that showed him trailing Kamala Harris in Iowa.

Six jurors were selected in the Florida trial on Monday.

In his opening statement Tuesday, CNN attorney Dave Axelrod argued that the story was correct, and that the statements about Young were based almost entirely on his own words.

“Every word you will see in CNN’s reporting was true,” Axelrod said. “It was tough. It was fair. And it was true.”

He noted that CNN provided extensive coverage of the plight of refugees in the wake of the withdrawal of US troops.

“It was a disaster,” Axelrod said. “This is a story that we as Americans needed to see. It was a policy failure that left people who were our friends in a dire situation.”

Axelrod said many Afghans faced desperate fear of retaliation by the Taliban. He argued that Young’s price for the Afghans was “an incredibly large amount of money”.

He also argued that Young saw the chaos in Afghanistan as “nothing more than a way to make money.” He also emphasized that the story did not accuse Young of anything illegal.

Roche previewed the prosecution’s case, which will rely heavily on internal messages shared by the CNN team during the story’s preparation. In one message, reporter Alex Marquardt promised that he is “going to get that Zachary Young MF-er.” Another CNN contributor said the story would make “a punchable face” — that is, Young’s, the lawyer said.

However, other communications indicate that other CNN employees have doubts about the story, suggesting it was “full of holes,” like “Swiss cheese,” Roche said.

Axelrod countered that the reporters had gone to extensive measures to get as much information as possible from Young, and included his response in the story. He also defended reporters’ “callous observations” about Young, saying they found his approach to the dire situation offensive.

Roche said Young, a Navy veteran who later worked for the CIA, successfully brought 22 women out of Afghanistan on behalf of four corporate clients, including Audible and Bloomberg. He said Young never charged an individual Afghan.

Young earned as much as $350,000 a year as a security contractor, but Roche argued that his career and reputation were destroyed in the wake of the CNN report.

Roche evoked Walter Cronkite, the CBS anchor who he said was “actually interested in conveying the facts.” He contrasted with modern journalistic culture, which he said was focused on “clicks, scandals and drama.”

“You have an opportunity in this process to move the pendulum back toward sanity in our media,” he said.

The trial is expected to last two weeks.