Media Research Center writer Nicholas Fondacaro has spent months obsessing over Zachary Young’s lawsuit against CNN, colluding with Young’s attorneys to smear CNN and push defamatory accusations. As the trial date approached, Fondacaro served up a Jan. 2 post offering his highly biased preview:
After two years of litigation, days worth of time spent in a litany of hearings and deposition testimonies, and boat loads of money spent on lawyers, the trial in the $1 billion defamation suit against CNN is set to begin this Monday, January 6. A lot has happened over the last several months as arguments shifted, witnesses axed, and rulings were made by Judge Williams Scott Henry. So now’s the perfect time to look back at those developments and examine how things stand ahead of the opening arguments.
The alleged defamation stemmed from a November 11, 2021 episode of The Lead with Jake Tapper where Tapper led into the segment by painting an image of a “black market” hustler who charged “exorbitant fees” taking advantage of desperate people trying to leave Afghanistan following President Biden disastrous withdrawal:
[…]A NewsBusters investigation found that CNN had since deleted the segment in question from their CNN Transcripts archive page for the show, and there was no note about the missing segment.
As we’ve pointed out, Fondacaro is being deceitful by calling this a “$1 billion defamation suit” — he merely quoted Young’s lawyer throwing that number out in speculation.
Fondacaro went on to put an heavy anti-CNN spin on pre-trial activities by hyping how “As the case proceeded through the summer and into the fall, things just got worse for CNN.” His wild anti-CNN spin continued (with the help fo YOung;s lawyers, of course):
In early December, Young scored several legal victories in a pair of orders obtained by NewsBusters. Among them were affirmations that punitive damages would still be on the table for a jury to potentially award Young, CNN’s “retraction” of the story wasn’t good enough, Young’s expert witnesses would remain as part of his case, Young did not take money from the Afghans he was helping to evacuate, and he did nothing illegal.
In mid-December and on January 2, just days before the trial was set to begin, Judge Henry affirmed that Young’s counsel from Freedman Normand Friedland LLP would be permitted to bring up CNN’s gloating about Fox News’s settlement with Dominion Voting Systems. They argued it was evidence that they knew and respected the possible threat of a defamation suit.
CNN did get some victories of their own in the run up to the trial. They managed to dodge a request for sanctions after they were accused of misleading the court on disclosing financial discovery documents. They also won on keeping certain documents and testimonies redacted.
In comments made to NewsBusters back in June, Young’s lead counsel, Vel Freedman made it clear that that there wouldn’t be a settlement before the trial began. He told NewsBusters there was “zero chance this case gets stopped before trial” and that the goal was to “take CNN to task.”
Adding: “CNN claims to be the ‘most trusted name in news,’ but their internal documents show that the only thing you can ‘trust’ CNN to do, is ignore the facts, push an agenda, and hurt innocent people. We’re looking forward to trial.”
Fondacaro made no effort to obtain comment from CNN to balance out his article — then again, he’s not a real reporter and he’s not being paid to be fair and balanced. He and his employer have actively rooted for the destruction of CNN for years, and this is just another part of that biased campaign.
Fondcaro spent a Jan. 6 post whining that a more journalistically minded organization weighed in on the trial, complete with a partisan sneer at the reporter who wrote it:
Overly lauded NPR media reporter David Folkenflik finally discovered the $1 billion defamation suit against CNN on the eve of the start of the trial, Sunday. While trying to massage the facts in CNN’s favor, Folkenflik huffed about the venue for the trial and injected President-elect Trump into the case for no reason. He also completely omitted CNN’s embarrassing attempt to use Taliban Sharia Law as their shield and other key details.
Folkenflik opened his piece titled “CNN goes on trial over its report alleging ‘black market’ for Afghan rescues” by taking his own sniping shots at Navy veteran and Plaintiff Zachary Young for charging money for dangerous work in a war zone: “CNN reported that a security consultant was among those offering to evacuate them — for a price — as part of an investigation into claims of ‘black market’ rescue operations.”
Even though Young’s success with evacuating two dozen women sponsored by companies (including Audible and Bloomberg) has never been a disputed point in court, Folkenflik suggested that success had been a subject of debate:
[…]He appeared to be priming the pump to blame a possible CNN loss on the location of the trial rather than the facts of the case.
Last May, Fondacaro suggested that Donald Trump didn’t receive the “fair trial” he was entitled to; the MRC also published a column by Cal Thomas arguing that Trump didn’t get a fair trial because his “jury pool drawn from a city that voted overwhelmingly for Biden.” So Fondacaro is complaining that CNN may use the same arguments Trump used. He then whined that Folkenflik wouldn’t parrot his anti-CNN propaganda and declared he wanted NPR destroyed because of that:
While Folkenflik did mention the damaging internal CNN messages that were unearthed in discovery that showed a hostile attitude toward Young, he never mentioned that two courts and four judges had determined they were evidence of possible “actual malice.”
However, he did conspicuously omit CNN’s attempt to cite Taliban Sharia law as how they could get away with calling Young a criminal. It was an argument that was thrown out by Judge Henry.
There was also no mention of CNN embarrassingly ditching their entire legal team and hiring new lawyers after a string of defeats. And he parroted CNN’s ridiculous complaint that Young “refused to cooperate with CNN’s reporting efforts” as if the network had any formal authority to force anyone to talk to them.
This bias by omission to obfuscate for CNN is just another reason to #DefundNPR.
By this time, Fondacaro had traveled to Florida to cover the trial (read: spread anti-CNN propaganda) on the MRC’s dime. In another Jan. 6 post, he cheered that several prospective jurors hate the media as much as he does:
After over six hours, Day One of the $1 billion defamation trial against CNN wrapped with a successful construction of the jury that would be hearing the case over the next two weeks in Panama City, Florida. Made up of six jurors and two alternatives, the jury is a mix of six women and two men. At one time, one of them worked at an ABC News affiliate and another who works as a military contractor with the Department of Defense; both occupations have ties to this case.
The pool of prospective jurors was over 40-people strong; several of which were openly hostile and disapproving of the news media industry and weren’t shy about letting CNN’s legal team know it.
Jury selection started hot with prospective Juror One telling the court that he would not be able to be impartial in the case because they strongly disliked the media.
Prospective Juror Two told the court that despite being a former employee for an ABC News affiliate, they could be an impartial juror. When asked by Vel Freedman, lead counsel for Navy veteran and Plaintiff Zachary Young, if they’d hesitate to issue a massive punitive damages judgement to “send a message” to CNN, no one raised their hand, including juror two.
When asked directly by Freedman, Juror Two said they “absolutely” could send a message to CNN and the rest of the media via a massive punitive damages judgement.
[…]Prospective Juror 23 was arguably the most blunt with their distaste for the media. He told the court then couldn’t be impartial because he holds the opinion that “media outlets think they can say whatever they want” and then “pretend to be the victim when they’re called on it.”
When Sanborn asked the jurors if they had ever heard CNN be accused of spreading fake news, from the perspective of this author, about 6-7 prospective jurors raised their hands, many of those also raised their hand to indicate they wouldn’t let that sway them. And when Sanborn asked whether they believed CNN’s political coverage was biased, enough showed receptive to the notion that Sanborn had to tell them that the case didn’t involve politics.
A sizable swath of the pool was likely ruled out because several of them knew each other in some way; whether knowing them directly or sending their kids to the same school were common examples in those instances.
Fondacaro did not indicate whether any of those anti-media jurors made it onto the jury. If they did, it seems that CNN has a basis for appeal of an adverse ruling. A real reporter would have reported that, but that’s not Fondacaro is — he’s a right-wing activist who’s getting paid to do axe-grinding against CNN on Brent Bozell’s behalf.