'Gotcha' journalism leads to fisticuffs

I've always hated "gotcha" journalism, evoking scenes of Geraldo Rivera chasing some poor bloke down the sidewalk, shouting, "Why won't you answer me?" But even "gotcha" journalists should not be assaulted by their targets.

It's hard to explain how U.S. Rep. Bob Etheridge got himself into this pickle. A You Tube video, which has been picked up by news organizations, shows Etheridge confronting a couple of young men who were ambushing him with a video camera.



After greeting him as "congressman," one of the men asks, "Do you fully support the Obama agenda?" That, by the way, is not a journalistic question. It is unanswerable; just what is the "Obama agenda"? Instead of recognizing an ambush when the shooting starts, Etheridge grabs his questioner and demands to know who he is. The two men don't identify themselves — another journalistic no-no (you must always identify yourself) — and respond that they're students or they're working on a project.

Etheridge doesn't like the answers. He grabs one man by the wrist and won't let go. He then pulls him close and puts him in a sort of headlock, all the while demanding to know who they are. I suspect many of Etheridge's colleagues are congratulating him for doing what they have wanted to do many times to impertinent journalists and other questioners. But they didn't. They took the wiser path and just walked away. Etheridge could have and should have done the same.

Etheridge has since apologized for his behavior, but he did a poor job of explaining his actions (I had a hard day"). This episode might be more explicable if Etheridge, who reportedly turned down an invitation to run for the Senate against Richard Burr, were in a tight re-election race, but he's not. He has only token Republican opposition. Why ambush a congressman who has no real opposition? He can't explain his bullying as a result of re-election stress.

I've interviewed Etheridge a few times, and he always struck me as a little haughty but never as a potential assailant. Maybe it's time for Bob to find a less confrontational line of work, or at least remember that anything you say or do these days might end up on You Tube.