The reporter who tamed Trump
During U.S. President Donald Trump’s strenuous and freewheeling news conference on Feb. 16, there emerged a brief respite from the pointed questions about Russia, national security, immigration policy and chaos at the White House.
“Mr. President,” a reporter began, “Melania Trump announced the reopening of the White House Visitors Office. And she does a lot of great work for the country as well. Can you tell us a little bit about what First Lady Melania Trump does for the country?”
Trump lowered his combative tone. “Now, that’s what I call a nice question,” he said. “That is very — who are you with?”
The answer — UNF News — barely registered with Trump.
“Good,” the president said. “I’m going to start watching, all right?”
UNF News is not a television network, or a radio network, for that matter. UNF, or Universal News Forever, is the baby, identity, passion and obsession of Kyle Mazza, 19, who posed the question.
The question, mocked a little on social media, will most likely end up as a footnote. But Mazza’s unlikely path to the White House is a strange tale befitting strange times. UNF News, Mazza said, was his “own news station that I started when I was 8 years old.”
The network has neither advertisers nor subscribers. Yet in an era of fake news, partisanship and rancour, Mazza seems unfailingly earnest and without an agenda, aside from trying to become a reporter.
After forming UNF, Mazza would write articles about events in his hometown, Fair Lawn, N.J. A few years later, he obtained press credentials from a local cable access channel.
After graduating from high school, Mazza took classes at the Connecticut School of Broadcasting while pursuing his passion. Once he could drive, he aimed his sights on Manhattan.
“I covered one of the mayor’s press conferences,” he said of Bill de Blasio, New York’s mayor. “After I did that I got on the list to get advisories from the mayor, so I said, ‘Why not go to city hall and get myself known there?’ ”
For the past couple of years, he has become a semiregular in the city hall press corps. He said he mostly covers politics, breaking news and entertainment, but allowed that he really covered whatever struck his fancy. Other reporters had mostly kind things to say about Mazza, even if they said his approach reflected his age and experience. But even his mother was shocked when she saw him on national television.
Mazza had been going to the White House since the election, and said he had gone to four press briefings by press secretary Sean Spicer, securing weekly passes. He happened to be in Washington when Trump announced an impromptu news conference.
“I was prepared,” Mazza said, explaining that he had a news release from the White House about the first lady opening the visitors office, “and I said to myself, ‘There has not been a lot of coverage about this,’ and I thought it could be interesting.”