A settlement has been reached in a lawsuit filed against NBC by Covington Catholic graduate Nick Sandman.
Sandman announced the settlement in a tweet, saying the terms of the agreement are confidential. This is Sandmann's third settlement with a major news outlet following media coverage of a viral video featuring him at the Lincoln Memorial in January 2019.
Nick Sandmann and CovCath:It's a year later. Where do things stand, and what have we learned?
Documents filed Friday in U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of Kentucky show both parties agreed to dismiss the case without a judgement from the court.
Why did Nick Sandmann sue NBC?
A social media firestorm erupted when Sandmann was filmed with Native American elder Nathan Phillips in Washington, D.C. The situation unfolded after the March for Life, which Sandmann and his classmates from the Park Hills school attended. Phillips was attending the Indigenous Peoples March.
Sandmann and Phillips are shown standing close to one another in a crowd, as some of Sandmann's classmates stand behind him.
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In his lawsuit, Sandmann said NBC "unleashed its vast corporate wealth, influence, and power against Nicholas to falsely attack him despite the fact that at the time, he was a 16-year-old high school student."
Several lawsuits still ongoing in Covington Catholic High School controversy
Court records show Sandmann has filed suit in federal court against eight major news outlets including The Washington Post, CNN, NBC, The New York Times, CBS News, ABC News, Rolling Stone and Gannett.
In 2019, a judge dismissed part of Sandmann's suit against The Washington Post. Then, the court allowed a section of suit to continue that criticized the outlets' use of the word "blocked" which is how Phillips characterized Sandmann's actions in interviews.
In January 2020, CNN settled. In July 2020, The Washington Post settled.
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In March 2020, Sandmann sued five more outlets, including Gannett, which is the parent company of The Enquirer. That lawsuit is ongoing.
Late last year, a federal judge dismissed a defamation and harassment lawsuit brought by 12 Covington Catholic students against some of the same news outlets, saying those students had different levels of exposure in the media coverage.
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