Hearty congratulations to Nicholas Sandmann of Park Hills, Kentucky. Sandmann is the best-known and most-abused member of the student group from Covington High School who were in Washington, DC in January last year for an anti-abortion rally.
Sightseeing after their rally, the students, many—including Sandmann—wearing MAGA hats, were accosted and taunted by a black-supremacist group, then by a Native American activist. They responded with some good-natured chanting of school sports songs. Sandmann himself just stood smiling through the whole thing. It was all reported by the press, however, as racist white-supremacist teenagers threatening and insulting a harmless old Indian.
Sandmann sued eight media outlets—the Washington Post, CNN, ABC, CBS, The Guardian, The Hill, NBC, and Twitter—for defamation, asking for a total $800 million in damages. In January this year he came to an out-of-court settlement for an undisclosed amount with CNN. Now we've heard that on July 24th, which as it happened is his 18th birthday, he got another settlement from The Washington Post, amount likewise undisclosed.
Addressing the sinister Jack Dorsey, CEO of Twitter, Sandmann tweeted that
We have settled with WAPO and CNN.
— Nicholas Sandmann (@N1ckSandmann) July 24, 2020
The fight isn’t over. 2 down. 6 to go.
Don’t hold your breath @jack.
I certainly hope the fight isn't over. All strength to you, Nicholas. Radio Derb is cheering you on. Out-of-court settlements in cases like this are way smaller than the amounts being asked for, but I'm betting Nicholas Sandmann will come out of this with enough for a very nice car, perhaps a new house for his Dad and Mom. Jolly good luck to him!
[Erratum added post-podcast by JD: A listener tells me the eight cases are the ones settled with CNN and WaPo plus NBC, CBS, ABC, NYT, Gannett, and Rolling Stone. See this link.]
