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NewsCut
Bob Collins

CBC reporter assaulted during live stand-up

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TV reporters are outrageously vulnerable when they're doing live interviews and "stand-ups" as we learned in 2015 when a TV reporter and her camera crew were shot to death on live TV.

What happened to a CBC reporter in Toronto the other night wasn't murder, but it was an assault.

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Chris Glover, the reporter, was in a tough spot. He was on television. What if he had turned around and slugged the guy. Does he keep his job?

"I could feel something on the back of my neck and on the back of my head … I didn't really know what it was," Glover said.

"Looking back, I knew that it was his tongue and he was licking me."

He soldiered on. And then he called the cops on the man -- an actor named Boyd Banks.

"At first, I was unsure whether I wanted to involve police," Glover writes today on his website. I wasn't physically injured; I just felt mortified and embarrassed. I don't know what crime label might ultimately be placed on this, if any at all. But I decided to go to police because I know this shouldn't happen to anyone else."

"There is no excuse for my behaviour last night. I'm guilty of everything," the assailant told the CBC.

Glover says it's an ongoing problem, particularly for female journalists.

Unfortunately, this isn't the first time a journalist has been harassed on the job, and far too often it's my female colleagues who are targeted.

We deserve to be treated with respect while doing our job, just like transit operators, retail workers, nurses, politicians and all other professions who are routinely the targets of harassment on the job.

I want to acknowledge the support and kind messages I've received over the past two days from outraged social media users and fellow journalists, but also from concerned comedians.

I'm glad the man who attacked me apologized and took responsibility for his actions. I heard the shame in his voice when he spoke to CBC Toronto.

I hope this embarrassment serves as a lesson to others to think before they act. I know I was at a comedy event, and he thought at the time it was a joke, but nothing about this is funny.

Glover has received plenty of support on social media. But he's also been targeted by the usual suspects who find assault funny.