Physically attacking the reporter

“Usually when people say the press is ‘under assault,’ they speak metaphorically.”

-- Jeet Heer, senior editor, The New Republic

ARepublican candidate in a special election for a congressional seat in Montana, U.S.A has been caught in a firestorm after he “body-slammed” Ben Jacobs, a reporter of The Guardian, to the ground, breaking his glasses and shattering his nerves.

Police charged millionaire politician Greg Gianforte with slight misdemeanor for grabbing Jacobs’s neck and pushing him to the ground.No visible sign of injury but it was a physical attack, worse than being verbally abused by a politician.

‘Egregious assault’

Jeff Balou, president of the National Press Club in the U.S. called it an “egregious assault on the first amendment and civility, with proof.” Three Montana papers rescinded their endorsement of Gianforte.

The evidence was a recording of voices during the attack and testimony of witnesses, including a Fox News crew. Despite that, Gianforte lied, insisting that Jacobs shoved a recorder in his face and began asking questions. (Prodded by the House speaker, he apologized during his victory speech the next day; yes, the bastard won.)

Journalists covering a politician or public official can take insults and other boorish conduct of news sources. Incivility of interviewees can happen. Bracing for it goes with the job, par for the course in politics. But not an eruption of violence from the news source himself.

Gianforte out-Trumped the president who calls media “the enemy of the people” and from the stage shouts “fake news” and “low life” at journalists without going physical when he was a candidate. Gianforte shook up the veteran reporter: Jacobs said it was “the strangest moment that happened in my life of reporting.”

Surrogates used

There’s no recorded event in recent history about a Cebu journalist being physically attacked by a politician. Years ago, there were journalists who were killed. (No, the assault on the press at the time wasn’t “metaphorical” although Cebu had fewer killings of journalists than in other communities.) Even then, news sources didn’t do it themselves. Since executing journalists seemed to have gone out of style, any other kind of violence hasn’t been inflicted by the news source himself.

On Nov. 19, 1990, then dyMF’s Bobby Nalzaro was mauled and detained by a brother of a businessman who, the broadcaster alleged, collected excessive ferry fare in the wake of typhoon Ruping. A Presidential Security Group members struck Sun.Star’s Amper Campana and another photographer from “Today,” not by president Ramos or any of his officials during his Oct. 18, 1998 visit in Mandaue City. Supporters of then Bogo mayor Junnie Martinez, not the mayor himself, kicked and punched photographer Alex Badayos outside the “municipio” last July 8, 2007.

In his own hands

Thus, the Montana incident would stand out. Jacobs was pushed and thrown to the ground by the politician himself. Recent earlier incidents in the U.S. related, separately, to the police arrest a West Virginia reporter and the manhandling of Washington Post reporter by security guards. Not the news source unleashing the violence with his own hands.

It was thus disturbing in the U.S. and wherever journalists cover public officials and politicians.

Climate of hate

Critics blame the climate of hate against media nurtured by Trump. Or it could just be the growing intolerance of criticism and disdain for facts that don’t fit personal or party agenda.Or Gianforte just blew his top.

In the reporter’s list of what to expect from hostile news sources are uncivil behavior and libel lawsuit. Even though the U.S. setting is different, where it has become more than an occupational hazard, it can happen to a reporter anywhere else.

It’s short of killing but it can be nerve-shattering when the news source himself inflicts the violence on the journalist

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