Now they are going to sue CNN!
MAGA hats for everyone!
I still contend that the Mr. Sandmann will lose his case against WaPo (and likely CNN as well) simply because their initial reporting on the situation wasn't about the confrontation between him, Mr. Phillips, the BHI men nor the CCHS students. It was coverage of Native Americans, their cultural heritage and their mistreatment over the years and highlighted the Indigenous People's March on Washington, DC which happened to take place the day of the incident in question. Now, the video that accompanied the original story may not have provided an accurate portrayal of mistreatment of Native Americans overall, but to suggest that the students weren't mocking Mr. Phillips isn't accurate. They did though briefly.
If you start the video around the 1:12:50 mark you'll see the students first start dancing to Mr. Phillip's drum beat. Innocent enough. But then their celebration morphs into mocking with the Indian war cry and the tomahawk chop. It doesn't last long - probably about a minute or so - but they clearly do it. What was interesting about this sudden shift in herd behavior was at first, the students had directed their attention towards the BHI men. This is evidenced by the one student who takes off his shirt(s) and leads his schoolmates in a "battle cheer" (beginning at the 1:09:54 mark) in an effort to counter (or drown out) the BHI men. Not more than 3 minutes later does Mr. Phillips and his crew enter the picture and the students shift their attention away from the BHI men to Mr. Phillips. That's when the student go into their Indiana war cry w/tomahawk chop routine.
Now, people may think Mr. Phillip wrongfully injected himself into the situation OR did so intentionally because he has a beef with the school but even the BHI men believed he was acting as a peacemaker at that point and time. You can hear them state as much in the video when they say, "Here comes Gad...the peacekeeper". Moreover, the BHI men also believed the CCHS students were mocking Mr. Phillips and Co. But none of that is to suggest that the students were acting out of racism. IMO, they were just kids being kids, following the herd, being culturally insensitive and, thus, disrespectful. But racist...no.
And while I can't speak to how other media outlets covered this story, thereby, allegedly jumping on the "smirking kid wearing a MAGA hat" bandwagon, I can say that WaPo's reporting of this story didn't start out that way. Nonetheless, if this kid (his family and attorney) are going to go after liberal media outlets for their coverage of this incident, they'd better go after every other media outlet out their because many of them covered the story in much the same way. In other words, Mr. Sandman would be wrong to sue only the liberal media. He'd have to go after hundreds of other media sources, as well, but it's clear where the legal focus is directed: liberal media. If Mr. Sandman was merely characterized as being disrespectful with a mere smirk, he'll lose every case since that's pretty much how I've read WaPo, CNN, Reuters and AP's reporting of this story in their characterization of Mr. Sandman. Moreover, in the end we're not talking slander/libel as much as we're talking freedom of the press here. So, unless there's an article out there that makes it absolutely clear that some media outlet flat out called Mr. Sandman a racist, I seriously doubt he'll win any of his cases.