The Media Research Center’s Nicholas Fondacaro has been hypocritically obsessing over a man’s defamation lawsuit against CNN — not only because his employer virtually ignored Dominion’s defamation lawsuit against Fox News until it abruptly chose to end the lawsuit on the day of trial for a whopping $787 million, but also because Fondacaro himself engages in defamatory attacks, having repeatedly and falsely smeared “The View” co-host Sunny Hostin as “racist” and “anti-Semitic.” He continued his anti-CNN attack in a Sept. 24 post:
The legal representation CNN has relied on to handle the $1 billion defamation suit against them for the last two years may have been benched on Monday. According to filings exclusively obtained by NewsBusters, CNN has retained the services of law firm Ballard Spahr LLP out of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to represent them in the Panama City, Florida case.
According to two filings (one for each lawyer), CNN has brought on Dave Axelrod and Joe Bailey. They’re with the same law firm that CNN retained to handle their appeal of the punitive damages ruling that opened them up to possibly paying damages approaching or surpassing $1 billion.
Fondacaro’s hyping of a $1 billion lawsuit is purely speculative and not even what Young has demanded, so he’s engaging in dishonest journalism by portraying it otherwise.
Fondacaro demonstated that his anti-CNN work here is dishonest and biased in an Oct. 14 post:
According to court documents exclusively obtained by NewsBusters, CNN has apparently requested the court to seal mentions and quotes from their journalistic standards, effectively barring them from being viewed by the public in the $1 billion defamation suit against the Cable News Network.
Hiding their journalistic standards from the people who are supposed to trust them as a news source is the exact opposite of what organizations like the Associated Press and The New York Times, which intentionally make theirs publicly available.
Fondacaro did not offer to make the MRC’s journalistic standards available — perhaps because it doesn’t have any, which allows him to get away with defaming Hostin.
Fondacaro engaged in more dishonesty in an Oct. 30 post headlined “Defamation Hearing: CNN Says ‘Half-Ass’ Reporting Should Be Protected,” which began:
In a pre-Halloween hearing in the $1 billion defamation suit against them, on Wednesday, CNN tried to bring their Sharia law defense back from the grave. Judge William Scott Henry of Florida’s 14th Circuit Court called it “a circular argument” that wanted pity for the Afghanis while implying they were criminals for escaping the Taliban. The network’s lawyer ultimately argued that “half-ass” reporting should be constitutionally protected and not subject to a defamation suit.
But CNN never described its reporting as “half-ass” — the judge in the case did that. That tells us that the judge appears to be biased against CNN, but Fondacaro won’t tell you that lest it blow up his narrative. He went on to chortle that “They did have a good laugh over being able to say “half-ass” in the courtroom.”
Fondacaro’s blatant bias — driven by his ethically questionable collusion with Young’s lawyers — continued in future stories he wrote (which continued to dishonestly portray that $1 billion claim as factual instead of highly speculative):
- FL Judge Clears Way for Plaintiff Suing CNN to Subpoena Financial Docs
- ‘Bridge Too Far’: Defamation Judge Throws Out CNN’s Sharia Law Defense
- He’s TOO GOOD: CNN Wants Expert Witness Kicked Off Defamation Case
- CNN Is Trying to Hide Reporter’s Promotion, Raise from Defamation Jury
- Jake Tapper Refused to Answer Questions in Defamation Deposition
- CNN Doesn’t Want Tapper Questioned About Other Defamation Settlements
- Navy Veteran Suing CNN for Defamation Scores Big Wins as Trial Looms
- CNN Accused of Misleading Court on Discloser of Financial Documents in Defamation Suit
- ‘Too Speculative’: Judge Axes CNN Witness’s Claims Ahead of Defamation Trial
Fondaro showed even more anti-CNN hate in cheering an Oct. 20 post on Young’s counsel and the judge sticking it to CNN:
Following the $787 million defamation settlement between Fox News and Dominion Voting Systems in 2023, CNN did a lot of gloating and spiking the ball as they used it as a cudgel to attack the credibility of their cable news rival. But that celebration seems to have come back to bite them as U.S. Navy veteran and Plaintiff Zachary Young won a motion, on Thursday, to cite CNN’s coverage as evidence that CNN supposedly took the possibility of defamation seriously, in his upcoming $1 billion defamation trial.
In a filing on Monday, Young’s lead counsel, Vel Freedman explained the importance of examining CNN’s coverage of the Fox News settlement:
If CNN recognized the significance of the Dominion settlement as a cautionary tale and yet still chose to defame Young, that fact demonstrates the insufficiency of prior monetary amounts in deterring CNN’s misconduct. Such evidence illuminates the severity of CNN’s disregard for journalistic standards, underscores it knowingly undertook risk for clicks and viewers, and bolsters the argument that punitive award is necessary to deter CNN and others from future defamation.
Freedman also noted that in reporting on the settlement, Jake Tapper (one of the CNN journalists partially responsible for putting CNN in hot water) “made these statements as a CNN agent acting within the scope of his employment. The statement is probative because it is CNN’s acknowledgement of proper journalistic standards.”
We’ll keep this line of argument in mind for the inevitable defamation lawsuit Hostin (and possibly others) will file against Fondacaro and his employer.