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Camerawoman Fired For Tripping Migrant Who Fled Police

After a widely watched video showed one of its journalists tripping a man carrying a young boy as they attempted to run past police in Hungary, the TV network N1TV has fired the camerawoman.

The man she tripped was one of hundreds of migrants who pushed past police and fled across an open field, as videographers recorded the plight of people desperate to find safe havens in Europe.

In a video that was filmed by German television journalist — Stephan Richter — the camerawoman is seen sticking her leg out to trip a man who was evading a policeman's outstretched arm. With a boy clinging to him, the man falls to the ground. He's then seen getting up, yelling.

Announcing the firing, N1TV Editor in Chief Szabolcs Kisberk said his colleague "behaved unacceptably in Röszke collection point."

The network didn't identify the camerawoman; from Budapest, Lauren Frayer reports for NPR's Newscast unit that N1TV is "associated with Hungary's far-right anti-immigrant party," the Jobbik party.

In reviewing N1TV's coverage of the events at Röszke, we noticed that they included the footage shot by the camerawoman — up to the second at which she tripped the man running past her. The video shows the scene from her point of view.

The incident has attracted international attention. Other footage from the day showed the same N1TV camerawoman seeming to kick at least one other migrant — a young woman who was among a group of people trying to run past a line of police.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Bill Chappell is a writer and editor on the News Desk in the heart of NPR's newsroom in Washington, D.C.