One down, several more to go

It was almost an entire year ago when the MAGA hat donning Covington Catholic boys (specifically student Nick Sandmann) were accused of surrounding and badgering an elderly Native American man on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.

These were a few of the more prominent reactions on social media.

There are dozens of students laughing and egging on the behavior. Will be interesting to see if anyone is actually expelled, as officials suggest is possible https://t.co/l7kjDOxiS7

— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) January 20, 2019

#CovingtonCatholic High School seems like a hate factory to me. Why not just close it? Check out this thread https://t.co/p0F5B9ZnLt

— Howard Dean (@GovHowardDean) January 20, 2019

pic.twitter.com/1HN7SZTFI8

— Christopher Mathias (@letsgomathias) January 19, 2019

And a couple from my personal Facebook timeline:

Of course it was the larger media outlets like CNN, The Washington Post, etc. who ran with the narrative that Sandmann and his ilk were little more than racist hillbillies channeling the Trump mentality of marginalizing non-whites.

As it turned out, the Covington students were merely in the wrong place at the wrong time as it was a group who calls itself Black Hebrew Israelites who instigated the melee by shouting vile, racist epithets. Nevertheless, the damage had been done. Since Sandmann and his school was receiving threats and horribly negative publicity due to the (to be charitable) misleading media coverage, he decided to sue multiple media outlets for tens of millions of dollars.

On Tuesday, one such suit was settled.

Fox 19 first reported that CNN settled with Sandmann on Tuesday 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.

Sandmann’s attorney, Todd McMurtry, declined to comment on the dollar amount or other elements of the settlement with CNN.

McMurtry told Fox News that lawsuits against “as many as 13 other defendants will be filed in 30 to 40 days.”

Among them: ABC, CBS, The Guardian, The Huffington Post, NPR, Slate, The Hill, and Gannett which owns the Cincinnati Inquirer, as well as miscellaneous other small outfits, according to McMurtry. Separate lawsuits against the Washington Post and NBC have already been filed, he added.

I can't speak to the emotional maturity of young Nick but I can only hope he's multiple times more mature than I was at that age. Because if it were teen aged Brad who obtained what I assume was a substantial amount of money over being wrongly maligned, I would have been like "I don't need a college scholarship 'cause I can buy MY OWN SCHOOL, BITCHES!!!!!!!!!!!"

When it's all said and done, Nick Sandmann may be able to start his own college athletic conference.

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