I just finished watching CNN's Don Lemon's report about being shoved and dumped into a golf cart by Michelle Bachmann's staff and husband video here.
It should be a warning to us all!
It is literal thuggery and reminds me of the Nazis in the 1930s. This is not a casual reference. I do not go around calling people Nazis (even when I think their behavior calls for it). But I do think this kind of violence towards journalists and the media, for all their sheepish failures and opportunistic suck-up softball, is dangerous and should be confronted and nipped in the bud immediately.
I know what this rough treatment is like. I was shoved around by the George Allen campaign in 2006 when working as a tracker for the Jim Webb senatorial campaign.
More below the squiggle.
I am a woman of a certain age. I am 5'3" and only a little over my recommended weight. In short, I am not an imposing physical specimen.
While shooting video of George Allen in the Charlotte Airport lobby, where the campaign was holding an event, Allen's staff repeatedly stood in front of me, blocking my shot. OK, that's childish. But as the event went on, for a couple of them, shoving wasn't enough, and they added shoving to the mix. There's no video, because I had to lower the camera to keep my balance. To their credit, two high-profile reporters (from competing nets), each took an arm and positioned me between them, forcing the campaign to choose between important reporters and my annoying non-journalistic self. (This was an event, not a press conference.)
I was more angered than frightened, and made a cutting humor video out of what happened video here. (Notably, one of the shovers in this video was one of the staffers who also roughed me up. I wasn't hurt, but could see that had I been badly positioned or on the wrong foot, I could easily have fallen and been hurt. It was certainly not a pleasant experience.
Later in the campaign, staffers working for George Allen chased a blogger out of an event and slammed him into a glass door, video here. So they upped the ante considerably.
What occurred to Don Lemon is not common. But it is disturbing, and I sincerely hope the media will take notice and take action. I will be sending this post as a letter to the Society of Professional Journalists and the Radio-Television News Directors' Association.
Journalists' organizations and news organizations really need to pay attention to this problem. It is a matter of time before someone is really hurt. It will be good video, but it shouldn't happen. Ever.
I suggest a media blackout of Michelle Bachmann. Send reporters, especially TV. Run the story, but black out the video and lower the audio to a level so she cannot be heard. Run the video of the campaign shoving Lemon out of the way, and have the correspondent explain that, due to previous violence against reporters, this candidate will be blacked out for a week. It's a 1:30 or 2:00 minute package that will stop this crap from the Bachmann (and all other) campaign staffers.
I think this is really important, people. It's bad enough we have a news media that is pretty much muzzled by big money, buffaloed by hopes for personal career aggrandizement, and intimidated by fear of losing sources. To add bodily injury to this list is simply unacceptable in any kind of ... dare I say it... democracy.