Nick Sandmann Settles Lawsuit Against CNN

Here's what Fox News reported:

CNN on Tuesday settled a defamation lawsuit filed by Covington Catholic High School student Nick Sandmann over its botched coverage of a viral confrontation with a Native American elder that had portrayed the Kentucky teen as the aggressor.

Fox 19 first reported that CNN settled with Sandmann for an undisclosed amount. The $250 million defamation suit sought damages for the "emotional distress Nicholas and his family suffered" in the fallout of the network's reporting.

A lawyer for Sandmann declined to comment on the settlement but confirmed to Fox News that lawsuits against The Washington Post and NBC were ongoing. Fox 19 also reported that Sandmann attorney L. Lin Wood told the judge they planned to sue media company Gannett, the publisher of the Cincinnati Enquirer among other newspapers, within 60 days. Gannett did not immediately comment either.

Last March, Sandmann's attorneys launched their suit against CNN for its coverage of the incident before all the facts had surfaced. The teen was seeking a whopping $800 million in damages between the three news outlets.

Sandmann was swept up in a controversy after a video clip depicted the "MAGA" hat-wearing student smiling at Nathan Phillips beating a drum and singing a chant as he was surrounded by Sandmann's peers, who all had joined in on the chant in front of the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

However, several mainstream media outlets, including CNN, portrayed the incident with Sandmann and the other teens as being racially-charged before it was discovered by additional footage that a group of Black Hebrew Israelites had provoked the confrontation by slinging racial slurs at the students as they were waiting for their bus following last year's March For Life event in Washington D.C. Footage then showed Phillips, who was in town for the Indigenous Peoples March, approaching the students amid the rising tension between the two groups.

It's kind of funny to see CNN report on the story:

CNN has settled a lawsuit with a Kentucky high school student who was at the center of a viral video controversy, a spokesperson for the news network confirmed Tuesday.

No other details were immediately available. An attorney for the student, Nicholas Sandmann, did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Sandmann only tweeted, "Yes, we settled with CNN."

The news was first reported by WXIX-TV. The local outlet said a settlement figure was not made public at a court hearing in Covington, Kentucky.

The settlement will allow CNN to avoid a lengthy and potentially unpredictable trial. Sandmann sought $275 million in damages in the lawsuit he filed against CNN last March.

Sandmann, a student at Covington Catholic High School, became a national news story when he was in Washington on January 18, 2019, for the annual March for Life rally.

In a video that gained national attention, Sandmann was in an encounter with Omaha tribe elder Nathan Phillips, who was beating a hand-held drum and singing at the Indigenous Peoples March at the Lincoln Memorial on the same day.

Another video that surfaced days later provided additional context for the encounter, but the first video had gone viral, touching off widespread controversy as photos of the teenager and the red Make America Great Again hat he was wearing spread across social media.

In the second video, a group of black men who identified as members of the Black Hebrew Israelites were seen taunting the students from Covington Catholic High School with disparaging language and shouting racist slurs at participants in the Indigenous Peoples Rally and other passersby.

Sandmann at the time strongly denied accusations against him, saying he had been trying to "defuse the situation" by "remaining motionless and calm."