Protesters Attack Fox News Reporter

Other media are encountering violence, too
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted May 30, 2020 5:15 PM CDT

A Fox News reporter was pummeled and chased by protesters who had gathered outside the White House early Saturday as part of nationwide unrest following the death of George Floyd, the AP reports. For several journalists across the country, the demonstrations were taking an ominous, dangerous turn. A television reporter in Columbia, SC, was hurt by a thrown rock Saturday and a journalist in Minneapolis was shot in the thigh by a rubber bullet. Demonstrators also broke windows and vandalized the Atlanta office building where CNN is headquartered, and police in Louisville, Kentucky, apologized after an officer fired what appeared to be pepper bullets at a television news crew. Fox's Leland Vittert was rattled following the Washington attack that he said was clearly targeted at his news organization.

"We took a good thumping," he told the AP. A live shot he was doing was interrupted by a group of protesters who shouted obscenities directed at Fox. Flanked by two security guards, he and photographer Christian Galdabini walked away from Washington's Lafayette Park trailed by an angry group before riot police dispersed them. Vittert said there were no markings on him or the crew's equipment to identify them as from Fox. But he said during the demonstration, one man continually asked him who he worked for. He didn't answer, but the man found a picture of Vittert on his cell phone and shouted to other protesters that he was from Fox. "The protesters stopped protesting whatever it was they were protesting and turned on us," he said, "and that was a very different feeling." (A CNN crew was arrested at a Floyd protest.)

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