Journalists are there to report the news not become the news. While filming the news, they do represent the station and owners of said station when they are reporting the news. Sitting at the bar telling tales, not so much. In Hungary, a camerawoman forgot this rather important fact. Reuters discusses this event.

A camerawoman for a private television channel in Hungary was fired late on Tuesday after videos of her kicking and tripping up migrants fleeing police, including a man carrying a child, spread in the media and on the internet.

This is why companies have the ethics and company values training.  And the reason a journalist is supposed to be an impartial party: they are there to document the story.

In separate videos, the woman, who was not named by the channel, is seen kicking a girl and tripping up the man carrying a child as hundreds of migrants, many of them Syrian refugees, broke away from police on Hungary’s southern border with Serbia.

“An employee of N1TV today showed unacceptable behaviour at the Roszke collection point,” N1TV, also known as Nemzeti TV, said in a statement. “We have terminated the contract of the camerawoman with immediate effect today.”

Collection point.  Sounds like a checkpoint manned by…..police and possibly the military.  Watching the video makes even less sense.  The large number of officers seemed to be in control and did not need a journalist to “help” them do their jobs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DaEG21pM3pA

Nobody doubts there is an enormous problem in Europe with migrants and the EU is trying to react to this problem.  That does not justify assault.  It is not like she was randomly in a field and a horde of zombies appeared.   These were migrants chased by the police.  At a checkpoint. She was there as a journalist to film the events at this checkpoint.

Over 150,000 migrants, many of them refugees from conflicts in the Middle East, have been recorded entering Hungary so far this year. Police have been trying to round them up and register them in line with European Union rules, but many migrants refuse, fearing that they will then be forced to stay in Hungary.

This is not the way to get your point across but this is a way to get your picture on the global news.  And not in a good way. The reward for this rather foolish journalist was not a Pulitzer or accolades but a well deserved firing.  Good for NITV for having the integrity to fire this camerawoman.