On his eighteen birthday, Nicholas Sandmann had an exciting announcement.  On Twitter, he announced that he settled the $250 million lawsuit with the Washington Post.  Sandmann sued the newspaper for defamation, after they parted the Covington Catholic High School student as a racist, positing a picture of his face inches away from a Native American protestor, and making sure to point out he was wearing a “Make America Great Again” hat.  In the tweet, he finished his announcement by stating, “I still have more to do.”

Sandmann filed suits against CNN and NBC as well as the Washington Post, saying that the publications jumped to vilify him without understanding the full story.  Sandmann was in DC with his fell high school students for the annual March For Life protest, which advocates against abortion in the United States.  In the suit, he said that these news outlets painted him as “the face of the unruly mob,” and deliberately pushed a false narrative.  Sandmann already settled with CNN in January.  After CNN, Washington Post, and NBC promoted this story, other video footage showed the opposite, and that Sandmann was actually trying to calm the crowd down.  Certain outlets said that Sandmann and his friends “surrounded” the 64-year-old Native American with the purpose to stop him from moving. This was false.  

Why this matters: This is classic case against “fake news.” Sandmann, who was just in high school, was immediately portrayed to fulfill the MSM’s story about Trump supporters.  Without knowing the full context, they jumped to conclusions, and the student became a household figure not for the right reasons.  Instead of letting the story blow over, he lawyered up and sued.  It is important, also, that Sandmann was under the age of 18, and is an example of the stereotypes pushed onto Trump supporters and conservatives by the left.  

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