Insiders tell TheWrap that multiple journalists had faced an array of incidents while reporting and have not seen security measures improve
Multiple journalists at Spectrum News’ station in Los Angeles have raised safety concerns to management long before the fatal Orlando shooting — and have not seen any real action to increase security, an individual with knowledge of the situation told TheWrap. But they did get a guest speaker from CNN…
“Journalists who experienced incidents in the field started to raise concerns that it was becoming more and more dangerous to shoot in the field with no security,” said the individual.
However, Spectrum News management said there was no budget to pay for security to accompany journalists on dangerous assignments. Spectrum field reporters are all classified as MMJ (multimedia journalists) which means they report on-camera, write and edit their own stories and shoot “live shots.”
TheWrap also learned that some Spectrum journalists routinely contend with an array of safety challenges including unprovoked attacks — both verbal and physical — by erratic homeless people and protestors. There also were incidents where journalists were harassed by politically motivated individuals, according to another individual with knowledge of the situation.
“As political rhetoric has ratcheted up, journalists in the field have become targets, especially starting from the point of when the term ‘fake news media’ was being used constantly,” said a local L.A. reporter from a competing newsroom.
A Spectrum News spokesperson told TheWrap: “We make field safety an ongoing part of our conversations at all of our networks, including Los Angeles. There have been discussions in our L.A. newsroom over the years, as with most newsrooms, we would imagine. It has been and should be an ongoing dialog in America.”
But according to a Spectrum News insider, after Lyons’ fatal shooting, the Los Angeles bureau called an “all hands meeting” during which many staffers expected to hear that perhaps new protocols or security were in the works. Instead, management welcomed guest speaker Sarah Sidner from CNN to the meeting to give tips on how to handle difficult situations and de-escalate confrontations.
A spokesperson for CNN told TheWrap they couldn’t comment on field security protocols for security reasons.
But according to a CNN production source in reference to security for correspondents like Sidner: “It would depend. Reporting teams don’t generally have security detail in the field. But there certainly have been shoots where security has been sent along with the field correspondent like during the worst of [the] George Floyd unrest or some Trump rallies.”
Lyons and another Spectrum News 13 employee, photojournalist Jesse Walden, were shot last week while covering the homicide of a woman just outside Orlando in Pine Hills.
When asked whether Spectrum News had any specific policy regarding security detail for MMJs in the field, the spokesperson told TheWrap: “We typically send people in pairs when there is breaking news of any kind. There are times where we have sent a security detail with our journalists. Our employees are also empowered to decline to cover a story, or to leave a scene, at any time if they don’t feel safe.”
The number of journalist deaths rose nearly 50% worldwide in 2022 from previous year, according to the annual report from the Committee to Protect Journalists.
Joseph Kapsch