The newspaper is facing a $250 million defamation lawsuit filed by Nick Sandmann, the 16-year-old at the centre of a video that inspired the original story.

The editor says the paper was guilty of sloppy journalism in its reporting of the Covington Catholic High School students' alleged encounter with Native American activists.

The controversy began in January when a video emerged of student Nick Sandmann and Nathan Phillips, a Native American elder, in a face-off in Washington, DC.

The boys were in town for a March for Life, while Phillips (himself not a veteran) and his group were rallying for Vietnam war veterans.

A video clip from the incident that went viral shows Sandmann standing face to face with Phillips. Sandmann is smiling while Phillips sings and plays his drum.

In its early coverage of the exchange between Sandmann and Phillips, the paper said Phillips was prevented by one student from moving on.

The paper also said Phillips's group had been taunted by the students in the lead-up to the encounter and that the students were trying to instigate a conflict.

The Post framed Sandmann and his classmates as instigators and Phillips as a victim, focusing on the boys' "white privilege" and apparent political affiliation without attempting to fact-check the content of the video or contact the people involved.

The story was subsequently picked up by dozens of news outlets.

Sandmann, his classmates and their families were doxxed (researched and discussed on the internet) and received death threats as the story spread across social media.

Six weeks after publishing the initial article, the Washington Post editor has admitted "subsequent reporting, a student's statement and additional video" showing the entire encounter either contradicted or didn't support the initial story.

He now says the Covington boys did not taunt, provoke or stand in the way of Phillips.

The Post has also removed a tweet which quotes Phillips' claim that the boys did taunt and provoke him and stand in his way.

Sandmann is seeking $50 million in compensatory damages and $200 million in punitive damages and claimed that the reporting caused "permanent harm to his reputation".

Source

• Deadline Hollywood
• RT.com
• The Hill
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