‘F– Michelle Fields!’ — Interview With Reporter Harassed at Occupy DC Protest

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Michelle Fields stands next to a policeman while
covering ‘Occupy DC’ protests, Nov. 4, 2011

Michelle Fields, a young video reporter for the Daily Caller, was assigned to cover Friday night’s Occupy DC protests outside the Americans for Prosperity “Defending the American Dream” conference at the Washington Convention Center. In an interview Saturday morning, Fields described how she was targeted for harassment:

Robert Stacy McCain: You won’t be going back?
Michelle Fields, Daily Caller: I won’t be going back to cover it. I actually don’t feel safe going back to those protests, because they singled me out, they singled out the Daily Caller. I just don’t think it’s safe for me to be back around those people.
They actually had a person covering me all night, for about three hours, with someone walking around with a camera, screaming things out to me like, “You’re worse than Fox,” and attacking me, attacking what I’m wearing. So I won’t be returning.

McCAIN: Attacking what you were wearing?
FIELDS: Exactly, yes. I think they were just trying to figure out ways to upset me — about the clothing I was wearing, where apparently I shop, really strange stuff.

McCAIN: Where you shop?
FIELDS: Exactly, yes.

McCAIN: You were wearing what? Abercrombie & Fitch or what?
FIELDS: They were screaming out that I was wearing [designer] Ann Taylor. So I’m not sure — I wasn’t wearing Ann Taylor.

McCAIN: Oh, my goodness.
FIELDS: They were screaming stuff out like that. They were screaming like, ‘F– Michelle Fields!’
And when I tried to conduct interviews, an individual would jump in front of the camera and stop the interview, or block it with a piece of paper or cardboard, so that we couldn’t tape anything or talk to anyone.

McCAIN: Oh, my goodness. So while they want all the friendly media they can get, in terms of —
FIELDS: Exactly, yes. And so people started chanting, ‘Right-wing extremists,’ while we were trying to interview people, and they talked to people who were part of Occupy DC and told them not to talk to us. So they chanted that, they chanted songs at me that I’m ugly, like ‘U-G-L-Y, you ain’t got no alibi, you’re ugly,’ to me individually, and that I’m a ‘horrible person.’ It was, literally, just attacking me and the Daily Caller, but specifically me.

McCAIN: Wow. Wow. And so they had somebody whose job was apparently to monitor you?
FIELDS: Exactly, yes. So for about three hours, I had someone following me around, harassing me, screaming things out to me. And I actually did not feel comfortable, because at one point there were a whole group of men surrounding me saying, ‘F—Michelle Fields.’  And I went to a police officer and I told him that I felt these people were harassing me. And the police officer said he’d take care of it, but it never ended. These people were harassing me for the entire evening.

McCAIN: Oh, my goodness. Oh, my goodness. These are the enlightened, tolerant, liberal, progressives.
FIELDS: Supposedly.

* * * * * *

UPDATE (Smitty): Welcome, Instapundit readers!

UPDATE II (RSM): Linked by Don Surber, Darleen Click at Protein Wisdom, Dan Collins at The Conservatory, Fire Andrea Mitchell and The Lonely Conservative — thanks! — and welcome, Hot Air readers!

PREVIOUSLY: #OWS Protesters Attempt to Storm AFP Defending the American Dream Summit


242 comments

  4. To Michelle Fields,
    Please bring video and voice recording devices to your reporting and leave them turned ON all the time. You are a reporter so act like one. This interview is about your words against others which is a no-no for a journalist. I like to believe in what you said but I cannot because I don’t see any evidence the protestors harrassed you.

  6. With this one story there are already far more facts documented about a sexual harassment assault on Michelle Fields at OWS than the left has revealed in the Herman Cain allegations in a week of full-tilt MSM muck-raking! But Cain is evil and the OWS protesters are just exercising their first amendment rights, according to the MSM? Yeah, right!!!!! Well done, Stacy.

  12. Okay, maybe I’m going to sound like a sexist pig, but “ugly”?  I would ask what the jokers are smoking, but the sarcasm probably wouldn’t work.  And what exactly is wrong with the way she’s dressed?  

  15. Joe Kliplinger, when your head is *occupying* your a**, you can’t really get acquainted with reality.  Just sayin’.

  17. I read recently (somewhere) that Nixon won by a land slide after  protests at the 68 Democratic convention turned violent.  These protest actions are making Obama and the senate Dems toast in 2012.  It’s all to the good.  

  18. Bring a can of OC spray next time.  That usually quiets the riled up down a bit.

    The interview would be much better anyway, with them snuffling and crying and snot dripping out of their noses.  It would beat what ever drivel that they would actually say.

  21. Of course it’s all edited and only shows snippets of when the Occupiers did something wrong but not when the people inside the building started beating and hurting us or when the police beat and dragged a few people over the ground. I also don’t see any footage where a car hit three protesters and dragged one protester 20 feet over the ground while I saw with my own eyes that you and your camera woman/men where video taping it. Please include that too?

  22. I’m sorry that happened to you, Michelle, but I commend your courage and thank you for exposing those cretins.
    PS They are wrong about everything, especially when they call you ugly, you are NOT ugly by any stretch of the imagination. I wonder if those goons ever pass a mirror and realize that the hideousness looking back at them is themselves. Obviously they are engaging in projection.

  26. If you have your own video, bring it asshole. Occupiers getting hit by a car and the police, I personally could use a good belly laugh.

  27. Will those disillusioned crybabies ever grow up and take responsibility for their actions, or will they continue to whine and blame others for their stupidity ?

  28. Let’s face it.  Stuff like this happens largely because it is going on in big cities.  In smaller rural towns these people would have already been beaten into a pulp several times over.

  29. and to think there is a tiny faction on the right – Ron Paul supporters – who believe that we “should work” with our enemies in Occupy, find some common ground.

    BREAKING NEWS… The Occupy Ft. Collins protester Benjamin David Gilmore, who was arrested Thursday night for arson, in that major downtown Ft. Collins fire, has been identified as a Ron Paul supporter and Anti-Fed activist.

    Time for the rest of us on the right to distance ourselves from anyone who desires to work with Occupy?

  31. Had any of that happened, it would be found page A-1 of the NYT and WAPO. Complete with biographies of the victims, the religious and ethnic backgrounds of the abusers/drivers, and a subsequent call by Barney Frank and Chuck Schumer for legislation protecting the Occupiers.

  35. The Daily Caller video is excellent “sense of the event” journalism. Kudos to Ms. Fields and whomever else was involved in its production (cameraman, etc.).

    Obviously it doesn’t reflect well on Occupy DC. If their partisans have a different take on things, well, I saw several other cameras there and will be interested in how they spin it.

  39. Tom, what do you think of this Gilmore arsonist guy out of Ft. Collins being identified as a Ron Paul supporter?

  42. Eric,

    1) As of this moment he is an accused arsonist, not a convicted arsonist.

    2) While I’m not a Ron Paul fan, I generally blame candidates for their own actions, not their supporters’ actions.

    3) All movements — including but definitely not limited to Ron Paul’s “R3V0Lution” thingie and Occupy — tend to attract teh krazies, for the simple reason that teh krazies like attention and find that it’s easier to get that attention by attaching themselves to newsworthy events.

    Even if the guy did it, that’s much less damning to the Occupy movement than the Fields video, which shows a much larger slice of the movement engaging in bad behavior (and for me to call it that is saying something — I’ve engaged in street actions myself, but several of the incidents in that video are beyond the pale).

  43. Ummm,  maybe because IT IS A BIG GOTCHA?  Not only Big but friggin’ huge. 

    All these left-libertarian Ron Paul people blasted those of us on the libertarian right for Andrei Breivik, even though the jerk was only linked to us Anti-Islamists in a very minor way.  Now, an arsonist who just burned down a major building in downtown Ft. Collins has just been identified as a left-libertarian anti-Fed/anti-War activist.  Suck it up left-libertarians.  This guy is one of yours.

  44. The reason they attacked her by calling her ugly and disparaging her clothing is because the people who are for equality of the sexes and who believe women and men should have equal opportunity and be treated the same think that the easiest way to get to her is to attack her looks and wardrobe.   You know…because she’s a chick.    

  46. 1) The Ron Paul peeps are far-right libertarians (far enough right that they reject the state-leftist, Trotskyite foreign policy of the neoconservatives, which overlaps with the hawkishness of the pseudo-libertarian “liberventionists”).

    2) If the Paul types “blasted” you over Brevik, I didn’t notice. I know there was some controversy over whether or not Geller had actually corresponded with / quoted the guy prior to his rampage, but even as anti-Gellerite as I am, I never made any kind of fuss over that (see my previous remarks on Teh Krazies attaching themselves to movements, etc.).

    3) If you have evidence that what’s-his-name is an arsonist, you should talk with the Fort Collins police. So far he is merely accused, and I have no idea whether or not the accusation is true or even credible.

  47. Wow Joe you look like a complete fool now that she posted the video… She baited the Occupiers inot accusing her of sloppy journalism you bit & now look like  an absolute fool… Nice playing with you… hahahahaha

  48. You don’t have a right to invade private buildings and block ingress/egress.  When you start committing crimes, assaulting elderly women, using children.  You are ridiculous and deserve to be in jail. You are responsible for anyone who is hurt.  

  49. So let me get this right, “occupiers” cause severe disruption, and cry foul when police try to get it back on track. They run to moving cars and cry foul when they get hit. They violate the law, scream intolerance to those of diverse opinions, refuse applications while protesting about no jobs, ignore the policymakers that aided this situation the world economy is in and made the policies that the squatters are protesting, but that’s all ok because that victim status is working well for you! Move along… Nothing to see here!

  50. Of course these A$$ Hats don’t find Michelle attractive… She’s not covered in feces, Can & does comb her hair, & appears to have good bathing habits…

    Hell I’ll go out on a limb and presume she shaves her armpits…  

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