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Jury selection is under way in Panama City, Florida, where Zachary Young is suing CNN and Jake Tapper for defamation. CNN falsely said that Young, who made efforts to extricate people from the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, acted illegally, using a “black market” and charging “exorbitant fees.”

It sounds like CNN and Tapper could be in trouble. Responding to voir dire questions from Young’s lawyer, prospective jurors indicated a willingness to award a $1 billion verdict if the evidence warranted it:

A potential juror who previously worked for an ABC News affiliate said they [sic]“absolutely” would be willing to use a punitive damages judgment to send a message to CNN and other news outlets.

I suspect there are a lot of potential jurors with similar sentiments. This, though, is the most interesting part:

Only one potential juror admitted to “regularly” watching CNN, and only 2 out of roughly 40, or 5 percent, knew who Tapper was. Another said he couldn’t be impartial because he believes “media outlets think they can say whatever they want” and then “pretend to be the victim when they’re called on it.” At least six raised their hands when Freedman asked if they believe CNN creates fake news.

Those numbers are truly grim. They reflect the reality that “mainstream” media are not really mainstream at all. Jake Tapper thinks he is a celebrity, but in the wider world he is barely known. And there are more who consider CNN a purveyor of “fake news” than there are who watch the network.

We have written often about the “actual malice” standard that applies in many defamation cases. Will it apply here? I don’t know: Young doesn’t seem like a public figure. But when it comes to old-fashioned malice, there seems to be plenty of evidence:

[Judge] Henry also ruled that Young’s attorneys could present text messages the veteran says will show that CNN employees had an agenda to smear him as a war profiteer. In one, Marquardt, the lead reporter on the Tapper segment, told colleagues he wanted to “nail this Zachary Young mfucker.” In another, CNN senior editor Fuzz Hogan called Young “a shit.”

Stay tuned.