Nicholas Fondacaro
Latest from Nicholas Fondacaro
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.
“I’m starting to hate that moment when Olympic runners helped each other to the finish line,” declared Slate writer Justin Peters in a headline on Wednesday. The moment in question occurred during a 5,000 meter heat in Rio on Tuesday. Nikki Hamblin of New Zealand fell and took out American Abbey D’Agostino with her. D’Agostino help Hamlin to her feet, while Hamblin cheered on D’Agostino when she showed signs of a knee injury, and both finished roughly two minutes behind first place.
In what many on Tuesday called “an extremely rare step,” the FBI handed over their notes and other documents pertaining to their investigation of Secretary Hillary Clinton’s private e-mail server to Congress. Also on Tuesday, rumors swirled that Donald Trump was seeking debate advice from the former Chair of Fox News Rodger Ailes. While CBS and NBC dedicated almost equal time to both stories, the superficial ABC dedicated more than twice the time to Trump’s debate prep.
After failing to find time to report the corruption conviction of Democratic Party “rising star” Kathleen Kane during their hours long morning shows Tuesday, the “Big Three” networks ABC, CBS,and NBC still couldn’t find the time to inform the public that same evening. “Pennsylvania's embattled attorney general announced Tuesday that she will resign by the end of Wednesday after she was convicted this week of leaking secret criminal files and then lying about it,” reported the Associated Press.
During a discussion on Bloomberg’s With All Due Respect about concerns that the Republican Party would abandon Donald Trump, guest Donny Deutsch shared his own fantasy that would spell bad news for the GOP. “I actually believe something else is going to start to happen in the next few weeks if things don't turn around,” Deutsch warned, “I can actually see Trump bailing.” According to Deutsch this isn’t the first time the thought has crossed his mind.
Vice President Joe Biden was on the campaign trail with Hillary Clinton in Scranton, Pennsylvania on Monday and the “Big Three” networks seem to be all about it on their news programs that evening. “It is Biden's first time of the campaign trail, side by side with the woman he publicly pondered running against,” reported ABC’s Cecilia Vega on World News Tonight, “The two now united in their fight against Trump, and their friendship.”
Conservative strategist Lisa Boothe appeared on Fox News Channel’s MediaBuzz and called out liberal media for their bias in favor of defending Hillary Clinton. “The problem is the media should be adept enough to be able cover [Donald Trump], while simultaneously covering the stuff Hillary Clinton has,” argued Boothe, “You should be able to walk and chew gum at the same time.” And throughout all of her bashing of the liberal media she backed it up with studies conducted by the Media Research Center.
The Libertarian Party candidate for president, Gary Johnson, joined Al Sharpton on MSNBC’s PoliticsNation Sunday to discuss the prospects of a third party’s chances of success in 2016. But Sharpton’s real goal seemed to be to defend Hillary Clinton and discredit Libertarians by asking Johnson, “Do you ever have any slight fear even that you may be taking votes from Hillary Clinton and helping to elect Donald Trump?”
On Saturday, CBS Weekend News ran a report on one of American’s greatest traditions, naturalization ceremonies of new US citizens. But in their report, which covered the previous Thursday’s ceremony in Los Angeles, California, CBS spotlighted those looking to vote against Donald Trump. “As Carter Evans reports, there's actually been a surge in citizenship applications this year, partially driven by the desire to vote,” stated anchor Reena Ninan.
All the networks in the “Big Three” decided it was time to move on from Hillary Clinton’s latest E-Mail controversy on Thursday evening. And for ABC who only gave the story 38 seconds the previous evening? They were in awe of her campaign’s “Olympics strategy” for attacking Donald Trump. “Her campaign saying Donald Trump has, quote, “an aversion to the truth,” after he labeled the president the founder of ISIS,” stated anchor David Muir on World News Tonight with the on-screen headline reading, “Going for Gold.”
While the liberal “Big Three” networks were up in arms Wednesday evening over the a comment Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump made about “second amendment people” in reference to stopping Hillary Clinton, they were strangely silent then when a Democratic Senate candidate from Ohio was caught celebrated the death of Justice Antonin Scalia.
The liberal “Big Three” networks seemed to try everything in their power to not mention Hillary Clinton’s latest e-mail controversy Wednesday. Throughout all of their news programs, both morning and evening, they gave the e-mails a total of 6 minutes 59 seconds. In stark contrast, they dragged out Trump’s “Second Amendment people” comment with a whopping 25 minutes, 54 seconds of coverage.