British broadcaster ITV has been forced to apologise after one of its journalists was filmed threatening to beat up a young man who’d allegedly heckled him while he was attempting to deliver a live cross.
As reported on B&T on Monday, journalist Callum Watkinson was reporting live from the British city of Birmingham when young men sitting in the city square decided to interrupt his broadcast.
However, Watkinson was having none of it, exploding and threatening actual violence on one of his detractors. The moment caught on a passerby’s phone.
During the 53-second clip, widely shared on social media, the angry journo can be heard saying: “If you get behind me again I will fucking bang you out, do you understand me?”
Check it out below:
Watkinson then asked the man: “I’m just trying to do a job. Have you got a job?” and added: “Where do you work? Footlocker or McDonald’s?”
He went on to say: “How about sorry for trying to mess up my work? How about that? Do you know how hard it is to broadcast live to half a million people?
“Do you know how hard it is to concentrate? It’s quite hard without someone in the background going: ‘Ooooh, I want to be on TV,’” he said.
Someone wasn’t happy about Watkinson’s outburst and complained to his bosses at ITV who were forced to issue the following statement: “ITV has spoken to the reporter and the matter is being dealt with internally. We apologise for any offence the comments have caused and will not be commenting further at this time.”
