Judge rules defamation case against Washington Post filed by Nick Sandmann's family can continue.

Nick Sandmann confonted by Nathan Phillips. USA Today/AP.

A federal judge has ruled that some of the defamation claims against the Washington Post filed by Covington Catholic student Nick Sandmann can continue to trial after originally dismissing the case. USA Today. After reviewing an amended complaint, the judge in the case said the case could enter the discovery phase. The case concerns a viral video where Sandmann and other kids from Covington Catholic were confronted by a Native American activist Nathan Phillips. The Washington Post and other news outlets claimed that Sandman was aggressive with Phillips but additional video showed that Sandmann did nothing but stand their and actually tried to defuse the situation. The Judge ruled that 30 of the 33 statements Sandmann's lawyers said were defamation were not but in three cases it could be argued. Those statements from the Post said that Sandmann blocked Nathan Phillips and did not allow him to leave. The amended complaint also aledges that the Washington Post should have known that Nathan Phillips was not reliable. 

My Comment:

An update to an old story which has now faded into the background but one that still angers me. From the very start is was clear that Sandmann did nothing wrong but the media portrayed him as some kind of violent racist when all he did was stand there quietly. Though later videos proved that Phillips (and the Black Hebrew Nationalists) were the ones doing the harassment. 

I was very angry when this case was originally dismissed. It seemed very clear that the Washington Post and other outlets were acting with malice. It should have been obvious to anyone that Sandmann was the one being harassed and considering the circumstances he acted like a mature young man. 

But what did the Post and other outlets do? They tried to make Sandmann out to be some kind of white supremacist, so full of hate that he harassed an innocent man of color. It didn't matter to them that Sandmann just stood there. It didn't matter that he and the other Covington Catholic kids were harassed by the Black Hebrew Nationalists who said some very racist things about them. And it certainly didn't matter to them that Nathan Phillips has a history of making things up and was the one that started the incident in the first place. None of that mattered because the Post though portraying a kid wearing a Make America Great Again hat as a monster was more important than the truth. As far as I am concerned they defamed this young man and he deserves to be compensated for that. 

With this ruling the discovery process can begin. That means the Post will have to hand over any internal communication about this story that could help Sandmann's case. Given how arrogant and cocky the Post and the media have been I wouldn't be surprised if they found a smoking gun. If there is an e-mail saying that they should ignore exculpatory evidence and go with the headlines they did the Post will have to pay out the nose.

The problem is that the Post won't be hurt too much even if they lose. Jeff Bezo's owns the paper and he has more money that almost anyone else on Earth. Bezo's has around $110 billion. Even if the Post has to pay $100 million it will be a drop in the bucket for Bezo's. And I doubt that Sandmann will win that much after appeals, even if he does win. Even a huge lawsuit and judgement against the Post won't do too much for their day to day operations. However, a big judgement might discourage other outlets from doing the same thing that the Post did in the future. 

However, even if the Washington Post can afford to lose money, the reputation hit will damage them more. Though I doubt many of the subscribers of the Post will care that they defamed an innocent child, it will hurt the reputation of the writers and editors of the paper. But given the fact that the rest of the media was just as wrong as the Post was it won't do much.