Leland Vittert on Floyd protests: Crowd started to push forward, attacked us
Fox News’ Leland Vittert describes the hostile scene of the George Floyd protests on ‘CAVUTO Live.’
There have been dozens of instances over the past several days of journalists facing abuse from both the police and protesters while covering the response to George Floyd's death. While many in the mainstream media are casting blame on President Trump's hostile rhetoric towards the press, others say attacks on the press in hostile situations predate this leader.
On Friday, law enforcement in Minnesota sparked an uproar after CNN reporter Omar Jimenez and his team were taken into custody live on-air, which later led to an apology from Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz following their release. CNN's headquarters in Atlanta was also vandalized and attacked by rioters.
Later that night, Fox News reporter Leland Vittert and his crew were chased out of Lafayette Park near the White House by an angry mob and were punched and hit with projectiles while attempting to cover the protests.
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MSNBC anchor Ali Velshi was reporting in Minneapolis on Saturday as he was struck in the leg by a rubber bullet from whom he believed to be state police. His colleague, NBC News correspondent Jo Ling Kent, was hit by what was described were fireworks while reporting in Seattle as police were dispersing a crowd.
Journalist Linda Tirado was shot at by a rubber bullet, leaving her permanently blind in the eye. Louisville-based reporter Kaitlin Rust, critics say, was directly targeted by police with pepper balls while she was on-air. Police were also seen allegedly assaulting a camera crew near the White House shortly before Trump walked to St. John's Cathedral. Others reportedly were tear-gassed, pepper-sprayed, and arrested despite having press credentials.
It wasn't just police who allegedly had targeted journalists. Chicago Tribune photographer Erin Hooley was attacked by looters and had her camera stolen. Pittsburgh photographer Ian Smith was stomped on and kicked by rioters and then rescued by another group protesters. Philadelphia journalist Jon Ehrens was beaten by rioters. Birmingham reporter Stephen Quinn took multiple blows to the head and was robbed while on television. Reuters correspondent Jonathan Landay also was attacked in Washington D.C.
There has been swift condemnation of the countless attacks against journalists across media organizations, but several members of the media are confident that President Trump and his ongoing war of words with the press played a role in this series of attacks on journalists.
Washington Post media columnist Margaret Sullivan had a column last weekend with the headline, "Trump has sown hatred of the press for years. Now journalists are under assault from police and protesters alike."
"The press has been attacked and disparaged by politicians for decades... but he has made it immeasurably worse," Sullivan argued. "Think of the campaign rallies where Trump egged on the crowds in raucous chants of 'CNN sucks.' Or the many times — even in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic — when he has responded to respectful questions on matters of life and death by ripping into the inquiring reporters. The goal of all this trash talk? Simple enough: To eat away at the press’s credibility."
"Far from helping to put out the anti-press flames, Trump instead got out his trusty gasoline can," Sullivan concluded. "Not surprising, in the least. But still plenty shameful."
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Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, took President Trump to task over a tweet he made on Sunday slamming the "lamestream media" who he accused of having a "sick agenda" of fomenting hatred and anarchy.
"Statements like this one from the President of the United States endanger the lives of reporters," Goldberg reacted.
CNN media correspondent Oliver Darcy agreed, writing in the "Reliable Sources" media industry newsletter, "It goes without saying that such attacks are reprehensible. But they are even more sinister given the actual attacks against the press."
Poynter Institute senior media writer Tom Jones went even further.
"While there is no way of knowing the motivation of every single attack against the media, how can one not question if Trump’s constant assaults on the press play a role in the disrespect and disregard toward the media?" Jones asked the Poynter newsletter. "When the leader of the free world disrespects the press, why should we expect citizens to respect them? For years, we’ve warned there would come a day when Trump’s words would move beyond rhetoric and carry over into real-world violence. The past few days have seen those fears come to fruition."
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NewsBusters managing editor Curtis Houck insisted it's a "pure farce" to suggest that the "unjustifiable attacks" on both local and national journalists can be blamed on the president, slamming the media for hesitating to denounce groups like Antifa who have contributed to the violence.
"Seeing as how the protesters and rioters skew heavily to the left on the political spectrum, the arguments are null and void that have come from your typical liberal media apologists and janitors," Houck told Fox News. "They're desperate to continue fomenting rage against news outlets that go about their news-gathering and presentation differently. Instead, you'll continue to see esoteric statements denouncing the attacks and lecturing about the importance of journalists now more than ever.''
The Hill media reporter Joe Concha told Fox News it's an "unfair criticism" to blame Trump for the attacks on journalists amid the protests, pointing to how media critics didn't blame President Obama or Vice President Biden for the riots that took place in Ferguson or Baltimore, "nor should they have."
"Reporters were arrested in Ferguson by police officers during riots at that time. Some reporters and crews also were hit with tear gas and rocks. This situation we're seeing today is obviously worse, but these riots are also considerably more widespread," Concha explained.
"All of these points don’t matter to those pushing a narrative while purposely ignoring the precedents," Concha added. "And it only makes matters much worse when the country more than ever needs to come together."
Jordan Chariton, co-founder of the progressive media outlet Status Coup, pointed out that the police "have been assaulting journalists for years" before President Trump took office. However, the mainstream media "rarely covered those journalists being assaulted or attacked" because they were either lesser-known names or independent journalists.
"Trump is enabling it, but the origins of it is not Trump," Chariton said about the recent string of attacks towards journalists.
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Progressive journalist Walker Bragman, though, thinks Trump "bears some responsibility" for the recent attacks on reporters. However, Bragman acknowledges that it's a bipartisan problem and that liberals have personally targeted him but that it's "worse when a president does it."
"Trump called the press the 'enemy of the people.' That is an extreme and outlandish statement for a sitting president to make," Bragman told Fox News. "Trump has flipped the conversation—off of sometimes flagrant corruption in his administration exposed by reporters, to the biases of those reporters. That’s troubling, to say the least."
Julio Rosas, a senior writer for the conservative news site Townhall.com, was covering the protests in Minneapolis last week when he, too, was hit with a rubber bullet shot by local police. But he believes that the criticism towards Trump in this regard is "misplaced."
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"Police do you have a poor history of taking action against members of the media during chaotic situations like the one we are experiencing now," Rosas told Fox News. "This problem runs deeper than Trump's Twitter feed and police do need to do a better job when interacting with the press."
Rosas added, "That said, I have had positive interactions with the police in Minneapolis. It very much depends on the individual officer."
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