Mediaite Interviews FBN’s Adam Shapiro, The Man Heckled By Occupy Wall Street
Adam Shapiro entered Occupy Wall Street lore on Tuesday, when an interview he was conducting at Zuccotti Park went viral, as throngs of protesters shouted “Fox News Lies” over his reporting. Shapiro, an Emmy-winning Syracuse University graduate who has been with FBN since 2007, sat down with Mediaite to share his thoughts on the interview, Occupy Wall Street, and the unappreciated beauty of Zuccotti Park.
On holding back from turning around and punching protesters:
You just can’t do that. I got heckled that night, but I’ve been heckled before, in other jobs. It just happens repeatedly.
How he reacts to hecklers and shot-crashers:
When someone starts yelling at me or yelling at anyone on our crew, if someone walks in front of the camera, if someone walks behind the camera, you do not stop them. Don’t touch them, don’t engage them, don’t talk to them. They’re looking for that. The minute you start talking to them or start trying to get them out of the the shot, you escalate what they’re trying to do. The easy thing for us to do when that happens is to say, “We’re going to come back,” put the microphone down, and say, “It’s over.”
On how the scene in Zuccotti Park got so crazy that night:
We were the first TV network in the park when it opened. We were waiting there to go live, videotaping people as they were coming in. Someone started chanting… what they chant. And as I’m waiting, it’s getting louder and louder and I’m just focusing on the camera. My responsibility there is two-fold. I have to read the statement the mayor issued that night about the re-opening of the park, and I have to give the people who are around me a chance to talk about what has transpired, which I had been doing all day. When I got to that point, I turned to a guy who was next to me, who I had pre-interviewed outside the gate — a lot of reporting is not with a camera or a microphone, you just talk to people and listen, and this guy kept referring to himself as a guy who used to throw pies in the faces of politicians.
So there he was next to me, and I turned to him, and I asked him, “What do you think about what transpired here?” And another protester turned to him and said, “Don’t talk to him, turn your back to him.” And the man did.
And that’s when I realized I’m not going to accomplish anything here, therefore, lets wrap. So I threw it back to Gerri [Willis].
But there was nothing to worry about:
We’ve gotten get heckled all the time when we’re down at Occupy Wall Street. I’ve never gotten the sense that we were in harm’s way.
On the crowd’s chanting of “Fox News Lies,” while Shapiro was reporting for Fox Business Network:
I got heckled Thursday morning. And it’s a loud group of people around you. It’s not fun, by the way. I don’t want you to think i enjoy it. But this woman I had spoken to — from Buffalo — she said, as the heckling stopped, something derogatory about Fox. Then she said, “But you’re okay.” And I looked at her and I smiled, and I said, “I’m one and the same with Fox.”
We’re all the same, we’re all one team. And I disagree with what they yell at me about my team, but that’s what they yell.
Picking and choosing the interview subjects:
Some of the protesters that I’ve talked to have legitimate gripes about what has happened with the economy, and I think those complaints sometimes get drowned out by other protesters who don’t share that sentiment.
I tried to interview a woman the other night. She looked tired. And then as we’re interviewing her, it became clear she was stoned. So we stopped the interview.
We interview legitimate people. I interviewed a man named Steve White, a retired laborer, and he was a great interview. I interviewed a college student. Great interview. It’s finding the people who are legitimate and giving them a chance to talk about legitimate issues, and using your best judgment to strain out those who may not be legitimate.
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