Image Credit: CNNWhile a nationwide uprising in Egypt calls for democracy, the movement’s opponents — supporters of President Hosni Mubarak — have been attacking the international media who have converged there to cover the conflict. With what seems like unprecedented frequency and focus, prominent U.S. television reporters — along with many other foreign journalists, from Al Jazeera and the BBC to Reuters and the Associated Press — have faced pointed aggression from angry mobs, including a highly publicized assault yesterday on CNN’s Anderson Cooper and his crew in Cairo’s Tahrir Square. Demonstrators tried to grab the camera, punched the cameraman and Cooper, and scratched Cooper’s producer before the reporter and crew could retreat to a more secure location, where he told viewers about the attack.
Later, CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric was crowded by demonstrators as she filmed in the city, while CBS correspondent Lara Logan reported that the Egyptian army is now preventing crews from covering the protests. “For the first time in the last few days you can really feel what dictatorship means,” she said.
ABC’s Christiane Amanpour told anchor Diane Sawyer, “They have really taken it out on the press, they’re blaming the press, those pro-Mubarak supporters, for all their woes. And they were very menacing. They told us not to go in when we tried to go in this afternoon or take our destiny into our own hands, they warned.” Today, Fox News reported that a crew led by correspondent Greg Palkot was “severely beaten” after fleeing the scene where a Molotov cocktail was thrown, and they were hospitalized overnight for their injuries. And NBC’s Lester Holt reported on this morning’s Today show via phone, explaining, “Suffice to say there’s some who want to limit the flow of information here, so we’re kind of on the move.” Holt said he couldn’t shoot even with a small cell-phone camera without being endangered:
Of course, while journalists have faced frightening intimidation and hostility, hundreds of citizens have been injured and killed — with death toll estimates ranging from 100 to 300 since the uprising began last week. But the high visibility of the U.S. media under attack has brought the conflict into Americans’ living rooms — and consciousness — in a whole new way.
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Anderson Cooper ‘punched and kicked’ by Mubarak supporters: VIDEO
This doesn’t surprise me. When all the journalist come into a country and film them like wild animals for their countries back home to look at and say, ” look at those savages”. I wouldn’t want to be filmed either.
That is completely NOT what’s happening.
You are obviously not watching any news coverage because that isn’t happening on any channel. The people who don’t want to be filmed are people paid by Mubarak to target film crews. But you can keep on siding with the people who are beating up on them if you want, it just isn’t a very popular side to be on right now.
Probably one of the best coverage on the Egyptian demonstration—seriously. I am sick of CNN and MSNBC calling this a “crisis” when it really is a revolution. I am glad Americans are understanding the dictatorship that Egypt has been suffering under for 30 years.
What does this have to do with Americans? Can we focus on our issues here? We have enough problems to worry about instead of reporting endlessly on Egypt.
Chris, if you don’t understand why this is important, then there’s really nothing to say to you other than: it’s time to go climb back under your rock.
Too bad O’Reilly and Hannity aren’t there. Maybe they’d get some sense beaten into them.
No kidding! Now that I would watch in a heartbeat.
You’re a real class act. Good to see how you want people with different opinions from your own to be treated.
If the Egyptians attack my husband Anderson again, I’ll go find Mubarak and beat the crap out of him. Stay away from my husband.
Unbelieveable. What has this got to do with the US? Youtr country has shored up this regime for years supplying money to Mubarak to allow access to the middle east and a stable neighbour for Israel.So your country has a moral obligation to the Egyptian people as you have supported their opression for years to suit your needs. Bit hypocritical now to be claiming ignorance or decrying the fact that the bullets used against the people have made in america written on them
Unfortunately, in this modern world NOBODY is outside the reach of a camera. Anything can be and WILL be shown in video on the internet or tv. Learn to live with it. Dictators and Communists don’t like that because it exposes their civil rights violations against people.
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