Nicholas Fondacaro
Latest from Nicholas Fondacaro
Jorge Ramos appeared on Anderson Cooper 360 Tuesday night to discuss his favorite person to hate, Donald Trump. While on the program he promoted his anti-Trump crusade and called for journalists to put objectivity aside. Ramos argued, “I think for journalists our social responsibility, I think, is to question those who are in power and when we're confronted with racism, discrimination, corruption, public lies, dictatorships and violations of human rights I think we have to take a stand.” And he received almost no push back from host Anderson Cooper.
Hillary Clinton was caught in yet another lie about her e-mails Tuesday, following an announcement from the State Department that they discovered still more e-mails she failed to turn over. “And tonight, we have confirmation that at least some of the thousands of e-mails deleted and not turned over to the State Department dealt with the issue of Benghazi, Libya, clearly not falling into the category of personal e-mails,” remarked Fox News’ Bret Baier. And despite this, all of the “Big Three” networks failed to mention it at all on their evening programs.
The fear of a cyber-attack on the American election system seemed close to being realized Monday with a dire warning from FBI. “There’s late word tonight that the FBI is warning state election officials to pay more attention to the security of their voting systems in response to recent hacking attacks that are just now coming to light,” reported fill-in anchor Savannah Guthrie on NBC Nightly News. NBC was the only network to share the FBI’s warning, while ABC and CBS failed to mention it at all.
The news broke Monday that ObamaCare has again missed enrollment forecasts from the Congressional Budget Office, resulting in grossly limited options and high prices for consumers. “Enrollment is simply nowhere near what the congressional budget office thought it would be,” reported Fox News correspondent Kevin Corke, “Now what that means is higher costs for those of you who that take part, and for the insurers, it means they're losing money.” Even with that dire fact the “Big Three” news networks chose to cover for the Obama administration.
On CNN’s Reliable Sources Sunday, host Brian Stelter who stuck up for Hillary Clinton last weekend did so again. This time he set his sight on the Associated Press for daring to publish a story which exposed how big money donors to the Clinton Foundation received special meetings with her while she was Secretary of State. Stelter questioned why they would even publish the story following a six and a half year investigation, “did you feel the pressure to publish SOMETHING even though so many critics have said it didn’t amount to much?”
On Sunday August 28 Univision’s Jorge Ramos appeared on CNN’s Reliable Sources to talk about Donald Trump, immigration, and respond to the Media Research Center’s call for him to be removed from the anchor chair. Because of Ramos’ active opposition to Trump, MRC Founder Brent Bozell put out a statement which said, “At the very least, Univision should remove Ramos from the network’s national evening news anchor chair, from now through Election Day.” Ramos’ response was a resounding no.
MSNBC’s Joy Reid was back at it again, Saturday, shouting down a conservative guest when they talked about the facts she wants to remain hidden. This time she shouted down Alfonso Aguilar, the President of the Latino Partnership for Conservative Principles, for daring to mention Planned Parenthood and Founder Margaret Sanger’s entrenched past in the eugenics movement. “Planned Parenthood is not a eugenicist organization,” Reid exclaimed loudly on AM Joy, “I think that is incredibly offensive.”
Disturbing news broke Thursday that for the third time in a week US Navy ships in or near the Persian Gulf were harassed by vessels maned by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. But the situation escaladed Thursday when the vessels ignored warnings and got close enough to for the USS Squall to draw warning shots. As provocative as the actions of the Iranian vessels were, they did not seem important enough for the “Big Three” network news outlet who didn’t report about the engagement at all, Thursday evening.
The war of words in the 2016 race for president reached a new level Thursday when both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton accused one another of being a “bigot.” On CBS Evening News, fill-in anchor James Brown seemed disappointed in them, starting the show off saying, “The presidential campaign may have hit a low point today, and there are still 75 days to go.” While Brown seemed disappointed, both ABC and NBC took the opportunity to pounce on Trump and praise Clinton’s attacks.
Back in 2008 the “Big Three” demanded to know all they could about Republican nominee John McCain’s health, but now it’s Hillary Clinton’s health that’s in the spotlight and the networks want little to do with it. The networks are treating talk of Clinton’s health as like more than a nuisance, with CBS declaring it, “A Trump lie about her health,” and ABC saying it’s something she can “laugh off” on a late night comedy show. This was not the standard when McCain ran in 2008, far from it in fact.
NBC seems to of have enough of the political scandal which involved an apparent pay-for-play scheme between the Clinton Foundation and the Hillary Clinton’s State Department. During Wednesday’s NBC Nightly News the network failed to mention the scandal at all, even though competitor CBS found new connections. “Of the 15 fundraisers Clinton has held over the last week, more than half have been hosted by donors who have also given to the foundation," reported Juliana Goldman on CBS Evening News.
After an Associated Press report that exposed how numerous Clinton Foundation donors were able to set up meetings with Hillary Clinton while Secretary of State, NBC correspondent and resident Clinton fangirl, Andrea Mitchell rushed to defend her on NBC Nightly News Tuesday. Mitchell seemed to be annoyed by the persistent scandal, calling it, “A headache for the Clinton campaign that could last until the election and beyond.”
News broke Tuesday via the Associated Press that, “At least 85 of 154 people from private interests who met or had phone conversations scheduled with Clinton while she led the State Department donated to her family charity or pledged commitments to its international programs.” But that didn’t seem important enough for ABC who only gave the story a total of one minute, 44 seconds between two segments, while giving the conspiracy theory about Clinton’s health two minutes, 43 seconds that same evening on World News Tonight.
With the fresh batch of newly released e-mails regarding the Clinton Foundation, thanks to a Judicial Watch lawsuit, came new revelations of strong connections with the Hillary Clinton State Department. The e-mails added more fuel to the accusations that foundation donors “payed-to-play.” Donors such as S. Daniel Abraham, the man behind Slim Fast, and the Crown Prince of Bahrain got special meetings with the Clinton through her top aide. Even with these startling new details CBS Evening News failed to report them Monday.
A major report broke in the New York Post on Sunday that laid out top Hillary Clinton Aide Huma Abedin’s past where she worked for a radical Muslim journal. “For a decade [Abedin] edited a radical Muslim publication that opposed women’s rights and blamed the US for 9/11,” wrote the Post’s Paul Sperry. But you would never know it if you watched the “Big Three” networks ABC, CBS, and NBC on Monday. They neither covered it in their morning shows nor their evening broadcasts.
After being caught on Monday August 15 selectively editing video from the Milwaukee riots, by MRC’s Kristine Marsh, CNN was at it again a full week to the day later. This time they deceptively edited Trump Campaign Manager Kellyanne Conway speaking on ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos. In CNN Correspondent Jessica Schneider’s report on The Lead she claimed Conway promised Donald Trump would refrain from personal attacks, even though she said no such thing.
On Sunday’s Reliable Sources CNN’s Brian Stelter brought up a serious issue for journalists,Hillary Clinton's major lack of press conferences. He brought on NPR’s White House Correspondent Tamara Keith to discuss the importance of pressers. “So with a press conference, you can pull out more information, or you can -- or it will be more clear that the candidate simply isn't answering,” she explained. But Stelter was more interested with Clinton’s health conspiracies than say a real issue, such as the e-mail scandal.
ABC demonstrated a marvelous case of hypocrisy on Sunday when it comes to its transparency and perhaps conflicts of interest. On Good Morning America, anchor Dan Harris joked that correspondent Ron Claiborne "can barely hide his lack of objectivity when it comes to the Yankees” after a sports report. However, during ABC's This Week, moderator George Stephanopoulos failed to re-disclose his contributions to the Clinton Foundation while interviewing Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook about the organization.
Shocking news broke Thursday that the handoff of the $400 million cash payment to Iran was a highly coordinated endeavor and did not occur until the American hostages were safe. These new details lend farther evidence to the argument that the cash was a ransom payment. But when it came to reporting this development the “Big Three” networks barely gave it anytime at all.
Morning Joe co-host Joe Scarborough brought on Time magazine Editor Nancy Gibbs to discuss the publication’s latest cover story about toxic environments on the internet. “I think we are all probably first amendment extremists about, yes, part of our life is that people will call us stupid and idiots and that's fine,” stated Gibbs, “But at what point do you not defend speech that suppresses speech?” Ironically the writer of the piece has his own history of trolling, and so does Morning Joe and MSNBC.