The Trump Shooting Screwed News Networks’ RNC Coverage Plans
Being a journalist at the Republican National Convention just days after an assassination attempt on Donald Trump is “like drinking out of a firehouse every day,” Geoff Bennett said of the chaos of newsgathering at a truly unprecedented time.
Bennett and Amna Nawaz are co-anchors of PBS News Hour. They and their team had just arrived in Milwaukee, where the RNC is taking place, when the news broke on Saturday of a shooting while Trump was speaking at a rally in Pennsylvania. “Not exactly the way we thought we’d be kicking off coverage at the RNC,” Nawaz told journalists at the Television Critics Association conference.
Like every news network, carefully laid coverage plans were scrapped and angles were redrafted following the weekend’s breaking news.