Journalist Accosted While Reporting on Hurricane

Shaquille Brewster was in Gulfport, Mississippi, reporting on the aftermath of Hurricane Ida for MSNBC. Craig Melvin, cozy in a studio somewhere asked him what he was seeing. Video shows him reporting that mail delivery had resumed while wind and rain persisted, when an apparently very upset man runs up to him. Brewster smoothly adds, "and a random person going around." Brewster and his camera crew deftly pivot to crop the man out of the shot, but he can still be heard yelling. “Y’all are reporting this accurately, right?” he seems to say, according to USA Today.

The unnamed man doesn’t back down, and gets pretty close to Brewster, who says "I'm gonna toss it back to you," to Melvin. "We have a person who needs a little help right now," he says, which is the calmest, friendliest way to look at a potential assault. Melvin, evidently concerned, replied, “Hey—hey hey hey hey hey,” as if to help cool the situation off from afar.

Brewster was fine, an update MSNBC reassured viewers with and the reporter himself confirmed. "Appreciate the concern guys. The team and I are all good!" he tweeted. He even got kudos from his boss, Rashida Jones, the president of MSNBC, who called him an "exceptional journalist," the Hill reports. (More cable news stories.)