Pro-union Demonstrators Assault FNC's Mike Tobin, Attempt to Shout Down Field Reports
The campaign by pro-union demonstrators in Madison, Wisconsin to silence Fox News and prevent it from reporting continued over the weekend. Protesters did their best to prevent FNC's Mike Tobin from reporting on the protests, all the while shouting - apparently oblivious to the irony - "Fox News lies!"
A few protesters even struck Tobin, though he later downplayed the assault, and said he had declined to press charges. Another protester threatened to break Tobin's neck, he said during one report.
"I find the whole thing a terrific distraction, and terribly frustrating, because I want to cover the story," Tobin told Fox News Radio host Scott Allen Miller on Monday. Tobin brushed off the physical abuse he says he has endured from a few protesters, and insisted that the real frustration was being "harassed with every live shot" (video below the break via J$P).
While reporting from Madison over the weekend, Tobin told Geraldo Rivera Gregg Jarrett that someone had "just hit me!" (Video of that segment below.) Tobin also tweeted on Sunday: "Demonstrator just hit me twice."
During the Monday interview with Miller, Tobin seemed to refer to his being struck twice by one of the protesters, saying "it amounted to a charlie horse." He stressed that his inability to effectively report from Madison troubled him more than the physical harassment from protesters there.
The perception that Fox is institutionally opposed to union demonstrators is the source of the harassment, Tobin explained. "The whole organization lies" is the sentiment Tobin says he heard from demonstrators - "if you can get that much of a coherent sentence," he added.
Tobin noted that he has seen a number of protesters with professionally-printed anti-Fox slogans on them, but that demonstrators' hatred of the channel seemed to be more of a "collective mentality."
I elaborated on that mentality last week in the context of other efforts to shut down Fox's reporting. Miller expressed a similar sentiment in his interview with Tobin. Protesters, he said, are "not trying to shut down your quote-unquote message, they're trying to stop you from reporting period. They don't care what you're saying."
That fact is made plain by the complete lack of interest in what Tobin was actually saying during the segments protesters attempted to shut down. Indeed, as he noted in his Miller interview, none of the protesters shouting Tobin down even knew who he was, let alone anything about his political leanings.
Baltimore Sun media critic David Zurawik has been one of the few non-Fox media personalities who has unequivocally condemned efforts by pro-union demonstrators to shut down Fox's field reporting operation. He called the efforts "ugly, bully-boy, thug tactics," and said that the anti-Fox demonstrators "should be ashamed."
But Zurawik's comments notwithstanding, the media has been, on the whole, deafeningly silent on these efforts to stifle reporting from Madison.
Exit question: what would the media reaction be if a protester struck, say, an MSNBC reporter at a Tea Party rally?
- Lachlan Markay's blog
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Comments
Racist Tea Party
Submitted by libBuster on Mon, 02/28/2011 - 7:34pm.
"Exit question: what would the media reaction be if a protester struck, say, an MSNBC reporter at a Tea Party rally?"
Who can forget Pelosi's taunting march past the Tea Party protestors last April. The false claims the racial epithets were uttered.
"Tone"
Submitted by mad53PA on Mon, 02/28/2011 - 7:37pm.
Fox lie, Obama good.
Fox lie, MSNBC good.
Fox lie, Walker bad.
The collective brain power of this gang is truly scary.
In keeping with the "new " logic of civility, since Tobin was attacked, it is the direct result of the negative Fox network coverage on the part of MSNBC, Obama, CNN, Schultz, Matthews, O'Donnell, Maddow etc.
Just being intellectually honest, right MSNBC!
he should use a throat microphone
Submitted by scrubjay on Mon, 02/28/2011 - 7:59pm.
There are thin lightweight throat microphones that fit unobtrusively along the shirt collar. They will only pick up the person’s voice and eliminate any harassing yelling or chanting around him. He can still have his regular microphone in his hand and turn it on selectively or he can put in front of him while he is speaking and let the harassers yell futilely, not realizing that they are not being heard by the news audience.
No...show the audience the TRUE nature of the left
Submitted by gopcongress on Mon, 02/28/2011 - 8:27pm.
IN actuality, THIS is actually PREFERABLE to using a mike. Kudos to Tobin to standing up to the criminal assaulters and to showing the crowd what is REALLY happening. As the rest of the communist networks (I'm sorry, but there is NO OTHER POLITICAL DESCRIPTION that I can assign to the non-Fox majors) will ignore the violent rhetoric and instead call it a PEACEFUL protest, such segments will only drive the few middlers left to the Tea Party right.
"The news and truth are not the same thing." -Walter Lippmann (1889-1974) FOLLOW ME ON TWITTER
The networks and MSM
Submitted by celator on Mon, 02/28/2011 - 8:29pm.
The networks and MSM newspapers will report on this physical attack on a Fox reporter by the union thugs as soon as the White House approves the news report.
The approved headline will be "Fox Reporter Mike Tobin Viciously Attacks Union Member; Denies Striking Innocent Union Brother With A Baseball Bat."
Haha. Another headline would
Submitted by tcm14 on Mon, 02/28/2011 - 8:37pm.
Haha. Another headline would probably be, "Fox reporter Mike Tobin attacks protestors' fists with his head."So Madison is the new Cairo
Submitted by dark_ds on Mon, 02/28/2011 - 9:12pm.
So Madison is the new Cairo afterall. Just like Anderson Cooper, The Fox Reporter and his cameraman, Laura Logan and others ... the press is assualted by enemies of freedom trying to shut them up. The nature of these thugs should be very apparent.
_______ Him and the Unicorn he rode in on
This also won't be reported
Submitted by Tugboat Phil on Tue, 03/01/2011 - 12:54am.
I heard about this on Larry Elder's radio show. I guess to lefties, gang rape is hilarious as long as it isn't "rape" rape.
http://hillbuzz.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/wpid-downloadfile-32.jpg?w=430&h=576
it's fitting they sent Mike Tobin
Submitted by Hoosier Conservative on Mon, 02/28/2011 - 9:24pm.
His experience reporting from warzones in the middle east was good practice for a bunch of union thugs in the people's republic of wisconsin.
The lefts mantra
Submitted by Redrowan2000 on Mon, 02/28/2011 - 9:28pm.
Shut down the media, shut down opposition. These thugs seem as bad as those in the dock holds from "On The Watrfront" when they assaulted the priest and tried to shut him down too. The unions including the Teachers Unions come across as a bunch of thugs who teach that shouting down opposition and physical assaults are the way to get your opinions validated..
I hope they all get fired like the air traffic controllers.
"Don't let the bastards grind you down."
Red
Islam religion of peace,
Submitted by LAM SON 719 on Mon, 02/28/2011 - 11:17pm.
Islam religion of peace, Democrats party of civility. Liberals, people for tolerence.
fox accuracy
Submitted by alvin on Tue, 03/01/2011 - 12:28am.
In February 2003. a Florida Court of Appeals unanimously agreed with an assertion by Fox News that there is no rule against distorting or falsifying the news in the United States.
Note that there is no video of Tobin's claim.
Really?
Submitted by Doc_Navy on Tue, 03/01/2011 - 1:40am.
There's no video of a Tea Party member EVER getting violent, screaming racial slurs or spitting on a prominent black Congressman... but I bet you believe that it's all true, dontcha?
I'd be willing to bet you think Rachel Maddow is an "Accurate" news commentator too.
Selective belief. A trademark of the left.
Doc
alvin---
Submitted by matthewdean on Tue, 03/01/2011 - 2:27am.
next time around, have Theodore do the posting....or Simon...
Submitted by DumbCanuck on Tue, 03/01/2011 - 5:35pm.
...just in case anybody didn't get the reference.
Nice one, md.
"There... Are... Four... Lights!"
Canuck---
Submitted by matthewdean on Tue, 03/01/2011 - 10:54pm.
Glad you caught that. :o) I forgot to (h/t) Ross Bagdasarian.Showing their true colors
Submitted by c5then on Tue, 03/01/2011 - 9:42am.
This is too hillarious and funny to believe. I wonder if they realize that they are displaying their hatred and illogical thinking to more people in America by attacking FoxNews than all of the coverage that CNN and MSNBC gives them combined.
What all of this hystrionics and tantrums by the left is going to do is to get thousands of state, county and local government employees layed off to ballance the budget and create a HUGE populist backlash against the big labor unions who have shown throughout this argument that they are more concerned with thier power than they are with their individual members' well being. The union "leadership" is willing to sacrifice thousands and thousands of their members so that they don't lose the ability to drive the state into backruptcy at some future date.
And the Ironic part is that they didn't have this "right" to collectively bargin with the government before the 1950's and it was given to them by the legislature.
Madison and Jefferson and Franklin built a Republic - Roberts killed it!
And the Ironic part is that
Submitted by Dan The Man 2 on Tue, 03/01/2011 - 12:18pm.
And the Ironic part is that they didn't have this "right" to collectively bargin with the government before the 1950's and it was given to them by the legislature.
What the government givith it takith away. That is why the founders were smart to say that we had God given rights and the government doesn't give the rights to us.
Communist union...........
Submitted by Patriot II on Tue, 03/01/2011 - 12:41pm.
communist liberals....communist muslims.....the shyt is about to hit the fan imho!!! These dumb bastards are willing, ready and able to give up their freedom for ....a job that they will lose anyway....dipwads.? WHAT? How do you spell S-T-U-P-I-D????
Fox News lies?
Submitted by Bobbygn on Tue, 03/01/2011 - 1:14pm.
The definition of "lying" to a Liberal is when someone says something they dont want to hear.