A CNN journalist said she saw it as a “bullying tactic” when Zachary Young messaged her to “have your facts right to avoid libel.”
Katie Bo Lillis, a senior reporter at CNN, discussed messages she exchanged with Young during her testimony in the network’s defamation trial on Wednesday.
Why It Matters
Trust in legacy media organizations has been declining in the United States for years. In April 2023, Fox News settled a lawsuit for $787 million after broadcasting false claims that voting machines were rigged in the 2020 presidential election.
Media organizations are closely monitoring the CNN case to assess the limits of the First Amendment’s freedom of speech protections.
What To Know
Zachary Young, a U.S. Navy veteran, is suing CNN, accusing the network of defamation and libel. He was featured in a segment on CNN’s The Lead with Jake Tapper on November 11, 2021, about the U.S. military‘s withdrawal from Afghanistan. Young …