A Florida jury on Friday found that CNN defamed a U.S. Navy veteran in a 2021 story about people paying to rescue endangered Afghans after the Taliban took over the country.

This is an unusual ruling for a media organization in a libel case. Defamation laws generally protect news organizations, and plaintiffs must meet a high standard to prove defamation.

A jury in Panama City, Florida, deliberated for more than eight hours starting Thursday before returning a verdict in favor of Zachary Young. Zachary Young has accused CNN of ruining his business by putting his face on screen in a story about the "black market" for smuggling desperate Afghans. Charge high fees.

The jury awarded Young $5 million in damages. The two sides reached an undisclosed settlement for punitive damages late Friday, according to the judge in the case. Details of the settlement were not immediately released.

Young argued that his business was targeted at sponsors who could afford to pay Afghans to leave the country, rather than individual Afghans who charged up to $10,000 for their services. While CNN said its use of the term "black market" was wrong, it insisted its reporting on Yang was accurate.

CNN told The Associated Press it would not comment on the verdict. But it sent a statement to Mediaite saying: "We remain proud of our journalists and are 100% committed to strong, fearless and fair reporting at CNN, although we will certainly learn useful lessons from this case. Lessons learned.”

At a trial in a conservative part of the country, Yang's lawyers urged jurors to send a message to the media. Questions asked by jurors during the trial conveyed some hostility, with some wondering whether CNN was treating the accuser as guilty before proving her innocence.

Private messages also became part of the trial, with the plaintiffs shown inside messages in which CNN reporter Alex Marquardt said profane and unflattering things about Young. Marquardt testified at trial that his story "was not a hit piece."

Marquardt's story first aired during Jake Tapper's CNN broadcast on November 11, 2021, and subsequent print stories were used on the network's website.

Libel trials are actually rare in the United States, in part because strong constitutional protections for the press make proving libel difficult. From a media perspective, taking a case to a judge or jury is a risk many executives are unwilling to take.

ABC News did not defend George Stephanopoulos last month over his comments about Trump, but instead agreed to pay $15 million to his presidential library. to discharge the former president’s defamation lawsuit. Ultimately, ABC parent company The Walt Disney Company concluded that, win or lose, the ongoing battle with Trump wasn't worth it.

In a separate case, Fox News agreed to pay Dominion Voting Systems $787 million on the day the trial begins in 2023 to settle allegations that the company had inaccurate reporting following the 2020 presidential election.