Ferguson Protester Blasts Fox News Reporter On Live TV, Enraged By On-Air Comments [Video]
A Ferguson, Missouri, protester gave an earful to a Fox News reporter and the entire Fox News audience after one of the network’s correspondents appeared to deride the protests during a live broadcast from the Ferguson streets late Monday night.
Fox News reporter Steve Harrigan appeared to say that the Ferguson protesters who remained on the street late Monday night were interested only in a “media event” and that they were not “dignified.”
But it was Harrigan’s derisive description of the late-night protests as “child’s play” that set off one unidentified protester on an angry, and often profane tirade.
“This is right now a media event, pure and simple,” said Harrigan, speaking to Fox News anchor Shepard Smith who was in a Fox studio in the early hours of Tuesday morning. “This is people running towards tear gas, running away from it. The dignified protesters went home at dusk, this is just child’s play right now.”
Harrigan was then interrupted by the angry protester off-camera, challenging Harrigan, apparently, to repeat what he’d just said.
“Say that s***!” the protester yelled at Harrigan. “No, say that s***!” When Harrigan responded that he was “on TV right now,” he protester said he didn’t care.
“I don’t give a damn if y’all on TV,” he said. “I don’t care about that s***!”
While some profanity got through, the Fox News five-second delay blocked out much of the enraged protesters diatribe. It appeared that at one point, Harrigan asked the protester about gunshots that had been reportedly heard in the area.
“Who heard shots!?” the protester was heard to reply, with the Fox News audio returning. “Them shooting at us! You talk about this s*** is just child’s play, who’s the child playing with toys?! Us or them?!”
After Smith took over in the studio as Harrigan seemed to try to get control of the situation — an interlude in which Smith derided the police force on the Ferguson streets as “Keystone Cops” — Harrigan returned to conduct an interview with a different protester, who had turned out to protest the police killing an unarmed teenager, Michael Brown.
Harrigan asked the second protester, “What’s your source of anger?”
While the answer to that question may have appeared obvious, the protester replied, “My source of anger is seeing my people — black or white, blue or brown — hurt.”
The Ferguson protester then told Harrigan he planed to “stand here with my people, all night, every night. No pillow, no covers, with my twin and my brothers.”
