‘As a cameraman with 25 years' experience working at the BBC, Ron Skeans probably knows a thing or two about hostile environments.
His colleagues have been killed and injured working in war zones and dictatorships the world over. But when Skeans landed the plum job in the corporation's Washington DC bureau in 1994, he surely didn't expect to come under physical threat while covering the rarified arena of US politics.
Of course, that was before the arrival of Donald Trump as commander in chief.
[…]
As Gary O'Donoghue, the reporter working with Skeans, later suggested when he described the incident, the assault followed a now-familiar tirade by the President against the press, in which he accused the media of failing to acknowledge his achievements and claimed "93% of the stories are negative."
[…]
Sadly, the trajectory toward violence is only going to escalate as Trump's anti-media rhetoric ramps up with the election cycle. And with no clear target among the Democrats yet, it is the press which will remain front and center.
Presidential speech has now literally been weaponized. And as election season begins, it seems that, while Skeans was the first, he may not be the last victim of Trump's war against the media.’
BBC cameraman attack shows Trump's anti-media speech has been weaponized (Opinion) - CNN
Further proof of Trump’s contempt for a free press.