Michelle Fields Reporter who says she was manhandled by Trump campaign manager resigns from Breitbart
Michelle Fields,
Breitbart News reporter Michelle Fields and editor-at-large Ben Shapiro have resigned from the conservative site over its handling of an alleged assault on Fields by Donald Trump’s campaign manager Corey Lewandowski.
“I don’t think they took my side,” Fields told The Washington Post early Monday. “They were protecting Trump more than me.”
Last week, Fields recounted in a post for Breitbart how Lewandowski allegedly grabbed her by the arm and yanked her away as she attempted to ask Trump a question after a news conference in Florida. The encounter left finger-shaped bruises on the 28-year-old reporter’s arm.
The Post’s Ben Terris, who witnessed the incident, has reported that Lewandowski was the one who grabbed Fields.
Trump and Lewandowski vehemently denied the accusation, and on Friday Breitbart — which has been sympathetic to Trump throughout the campaign — published a long post by senior editor at large Joel Pollak that painstakingly pieced together the event in question before concluding that the altercation couldn’t have happened the way Fields described it. Ultimately, Pollak suggested that perhaps Terris mistook Lewandowski for a security official or that her injuries were an accident incurred in the press scrum.
That same day, though, the site put out a brief statement saying that it stood behind Fields, but it did not demand an apology from the Trump campaign or assert that Fields was correct in identifying Lewandowski.
Pollak also reportedly instructed Breitbart staffers not to publicly defend their colleague. In internal messages originally obtained by BuzzFeed, a staffer, Brandon Darby, wrote that Lewandowski’s behavior was “a declaration of war” and that “silence is abandoning our team member.” Pollak responded, “In war, we wait for orders that are based on a careful plan. So wait.” (Speaking to The Post, Shapiro confirmed that the chat’s transcripts were accurate.)
“Breitbart has unfortunately become Trump’s Pravda,” Shapiro said, explaining his own resignation and referring to the Soviet Communist Party publication. “No media outlet worth its salt would throw over their own reporter and bad-mouth her on their front page in order to protect the candidate.”
Fields has stood by her account of the incident, as has Terris, even after Pollak published his piece challenging them both.
“I would have liked for them to believe me, believe the eyewitness,” Fields said of Breitbart. “I think they were more concerned about preserving their access to Trump than they were about finding out the truth.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/03/14/reporter-who-says-she-was-manhandled-by-trump-campaign-manager-resigns-from-breitbart/
Comments
Post a Comment