A U.S. District Court in Kentucky rejected motions to dismiss from four corporate media outlets that former Covington Catholic student Nick Sandmann sued, Fox 19 reported.
Sandmann and attorney Lin Wood filed lawsuits in March against The New York Times, Rolling Stones, ABC, CBS, and Gannett, the parent company of USA and the Cincinatti Enquirer. There was no ruling in Sandmann’s case against Gannett.
In the rulings, the opinion cited libelous references in the NYT, RS, ABC, and CBS to Sandmann blocking or preventing Nathan Phillips’ “exit” from the encounter.
The plaintiffs claim that Phillips made false and defamatory claims about Sandmann, which the media then published with malicious and destructive intentions.
They also repeated false assertions from Phillips that Sandmann acted with racial bias.
Video evidence from the media-distorted incident clearly shows that Sandmann did not force Phillips to stand in front of him and bang a drum.
Media companies had enough information from the videos that, with “reasonable journalistic care,” they could have determined that Phillips made false allegations, the lawsuit said.
The New York Times, Rolling Stones, ABC, and CBS said that they did not publish defamatory stories. Their arguments were dismissed, and the cases will proceed.
Sandmann settled a lawsuit with CNN in January and another with the Washington Post in July. Both settlements granted him an undisclosed amount of money.
Sandmann has become a symbol among conservatives of the media’s persistent desire to shape events to fit their anti-American, anti-white worldview.
The Republican Party invited him to speak to at the 2020 convention. He called out the media’s dishonesty, and later he revealed his desire to become a defamation lawyer.
“The full war machine of the mainstream media revved up into attack mode,” he said at the August convention. “The truth was not important in advancing their anti-Christian, anti-conservative … narrative.”
