In a Monday morning X publish, chief nationwide safety correspondent Alex Marquardt introduced that he can be leaving CNN “after 8 terrific years.” However Marquardt’s departure comes 4 months after he value the community a number of million {dollars} and tarnished their popularity with a maliciously defamatory report towards Navy veteran Zachary Younger.
“Some private information: I’m leaving CNN after 8 terrific years,” he wrote to his followers.
Including: “Powerful to say goodbye but it surely’s been an honor to work among the many easiest within the enterprise. Profound thanks to my comrades on the Nationwide Safety staff & the exceptional teammates I’ve labored with within the US and overseas.”
Marquardt was on the middle of a January defamation trial as his reporting about Younger, a safety contractor who was coordinating efforts to get harmless individuals out of Afghanistan, was discovered to be maliciously defamatory and value CNN $5 million in financial and emotional damages, plus an undisclosed quantity in punitive damages.
By way of discovery, messages between Marquardt and his “phenomenal teammates” (as he described them) proved that he had focused Younger with precise and pressed malice. He had boasted to an editor that he was “going to nail this Zachary Younger mfucker,” and he agreed with one other co-worker that Younger had a “punchable face.”
In the course of the trial, it got here to mild that Marquardt had fabricated a name with Younger, falsely giving the impression that he tried actually exhausting to come up with him earlier than the story went to air. In footage that was left on the slicing room flooring, however was performed for the jury, he joyfully referred to as the faux telephone name “theater!”
After giving Younger solely two hours to reply earlier than the story went to air, Younger really messaged again (in the midst of the night time for him) warning Marquardt that the story had factual inaccuracies. In a message to an editor, Marquardt decried: “fucking Younger simply texted.”
Within the midst of the case proceedings, Marquardt really acquired a promotion to chief nationwide safety correspondent; one thing CNN wished to cover from the jury. “CNN’s inner messages are indicative of a cowboy tradition that cares extra about clicks than accountability. In reality, CNN promoted the first reporter on the story after this lawsuit was filed, indicating this type of journalism will not be solely tolerated at CNN—it’s rewarded,” Younger’s co-counsel Joe Delich informed NewsBusters again in July, 2024.
Marquardt refused to apologize to Younger when pressed in open courtroom, as did each CNN worker who testified.
His X publish didn’t point out his new touchdown spot.
