A man in Newfoundland has been charged after allegedly yelling a sexually explicit phrase at a female journalist.
It was an incident similar to many others involving female reporters filming in public being subjected to obscene interruptions by individuals yelling the phrase into live news reports.
In this case NTV reporter Heather Gillis was interviewing a St John’s city councillor at an outside location when a vehicle drove past with two people inside, one of whom yelled out the obscene phrase.
Gillis captured an image of the vehicle licence plate and posted the image on Twitter in an effort to publicly shame the individuals.
She said it was the third time this has happened to her. Quoted by the Canadian Press on Tuesday she said, “I’m fed up — I’m tired of it. No one should have to endure that while they’re working. I’m a professional and I was humiliated interviewing a politician. It’s time for it to stop.”
The Royal Newfoundland Constabulary saw the post and urged her to contact them noting that “being a loser is not a criminal act, but causing a disturbance , section 175 of the Criminal Code, is”.
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The 27-year-old driver will appear in court June 1.
Many female reporters throughout North America have been victim of this crude heckling since 2015.
In one of the mos publicized cases, a Toronto reporter interviewed the young men who yelled the phrase while she was on air. One of the young men was subsequently fired from his job at Ontario Hydro. He was quietly re-hired sometime later.
The crude fad began with a faked interview posted online in 2014 and which went viral, inspiring many copycats heckling real reporters.
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