A high school sports announcer in Oklahoma has been awarded $25 million after the state's largest newspaper falsely branded him as a "racist."
Scott Sapulpa was one of two broadcasters during a March 2021 girls’ playoff game between Midwest City High School and Norman High School.
At the start of the game, the girls on the Norman team opted to take a knee during the national anthem in protest of police brutality.
The game made national headlines when the other announcer, Matt Rowan, went on a racist rant about the protest.
“They’re kneeling? F-cking n—-s. I hope Norman gets their ass kicked. F-ck them. I hope they lose. They’re gonna kneel like that?” Rowan said.
The rant continued, using similarly offensive language.
Soon after the game, The Oklahoman published an article falsely attributing the slurs and racist remarks to Sapulpa.
Though the article only attributed the rant to him for about three hours before being corrected, Sapulpa sued for defamation.
The New York Post reports, "Sapulpa’s attorneys claimed that as a result of the wrongful identification, he was placed on administrative leave, his teaching contract was not renewed, his private business lost nearly all of its clients, he received death threats and lost personal and professional relationships."
On Monday, a jury ruled in favor of Sapulpa and ordered Gannett, The Oklahoman's parent company, to pay $5 million in actual damages and $20 million in punitive damages.
“We’re just so happy for Scott,” his attorney Michael Barkett said, according to a report from NonDoc. “Hopefully this will vindicate his name.”
Barkett said that he hopes the verdict will deter other newspapers from publishing articles with false information.
“Their entire culture, we’ve seen in this case, is profits over people,” Barkett said. “Their power is what blinds them from telling the truth. They think they can get away with it.”
Gannett has said that it will appeal the verdict.
Bob Nelon, who represented Gannett, argued "Newspapers are made up of people, and people make mistakes. Mistakes happen. Gannett is made up of people — over 11,000 people."
“When you punish Gannett, you’re punishing all those small-town newspaper editors.”
