It appears that the Washington Post is starting to get a bit nervous over the $250 million defamation lawsuit that has been filed against them by the high school student who they smeared as a racist and who fought back.
Nick Sandmann of Kentucky’s Covington Catholic HS was vilified by the media over a fake news story that the 16-year-old teen and his classmates harassed an elderly Native American Vietnam “combat veteran” during the March For Life in Washington D.C.
Except it was fake news.
Nathan Phillips never saw action in Vietnam and a more extensive video than the one that was selectively edited to smear Sandmann as a racist just because he was wearing a red MAGA baseball hat, showed that it was the teens who were being harassed by a black identity extremist group and that Phillps was a bald-faced liar who instigated the incident.
Given the WaPo’s influence as one of the preeminent newspapers in the country despite its fanatical anti-Trump bias, it was an essential component of the false narrative that resulted in the lives of Sandmann, his family and his fellow students being upended and the targets of celeb-led doxing campaigns as well as threats from unhinged individuals.
So Sandmann’s family retained the services of high-powered attorney L. Lin Wood to sue the bastards and the first on the list was the Washington Post which more than a month after running with the fake news, issued a lame “editor’s note” on Friday admitting that it’s reporting was flawed.
The Post has issued an Editor’s Note about updates to its initial coverage of the Jan. 18 incident at the Lincoln Memorial: https://t.co/rhzKZ1715K
We’ve also deleted this Jan. 19 tweet in light of later developments. For more, see the Editor’s Note. pic.twitter.com/O7qCSnBMPO
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) March 1, 2019
However, that isn’t going to be enough to placate Wood and his clients and the attorney made it clear that he wasn’t impressed:
Washington Post “deletes” false tweet & immediately reposts it. The act of an arrogant, non-contrite bully. Media bully learns no lesson until it pays for damage, unequivocally admits wrongdoing & pledges to never again bully & falsely attack child without proper investigation. https://t.co/ArsYDalAms
— Lin Wood (@LLinWood) March 2, 2019
Via The Daily Caller, “‘Barely Worth Comment’: Covington Student’s Lawyer Blasts WAPO Editor’s Note As Too Little Too Late”:
Nick Sandmann’s attorney fired back at the Washington Post Friday, saying that the outlet’s attempt at correction via an editor’s note was “barely worth comment.”
When video of a confrontation between Native American elder Nathan Phillips and Covington Catholic High School junior Nick Sandmann went viral, many outlets — including WaPo — jumped on the narrative without waiting for the full story.
Sandmann was quickly painted as a racist bully — but video that surfaced just hours later showed that he had simply stood his ground while being berated by a nearby group of Black Hebrew Israelites and then approached by Phillips, who beat his drum in Sandmann’s face.
The Post offered up an editor’s note Friday, explaining that new information had come to light since the initial article was posted.
There is a good reason why Wood was not impressed.
All of the correct information was available within two days of the initial false reportage and yet the WaPo neither retracted, apologized nor appended their wishy-washy editor’s note to the story until Friday.
Another of Sandmann’s lawyers Todd McMurtry was similarly unimpressed and in a comment provided to the libertarian website Reason he also blasted The Post.
“What The Washington Post put out is barely worth comment,” Todd McMurtry, an attorney for Sandmann, told Reason. “WaPo committed gross journalistic malpractice and cannot undo its deeds with an editor’s note that purports to correct the record over a month after it led a frenzied mob in trashing a minor’s reputation. The Sandmanns would never accept half of a half-measure from an organization that still refuses to own up to its error.”
Phillips also announced via Twitter that a formal statement would be forthcoming on Monday:
On behalf of Nicholas Sandmann & his family, Todd McMurtry @FitLwyr and I will issue a formal statement on Monday responding to the actions taken today by The Washington Post & a letter received late this evening from its general counsel. https://t.co/ArsYDalAms
— Lin Wood (@LLinWood) March 2, 2019
Translation: they’re still going to sue the bastards!