Last night was indeed President Obama’s final White House Correspondents Dinner, but after the President was done with his one-liners and mic drop moment — punctuated with the phrase, “Obama, out!” — apparently reporters from two media outlets decided to have a less than agreeable disagreement when the afterparty began.
Ryan Grim works for the Huffington Post, and you have no doubt seen Jesse Watters — often referred to as Bill O’Reilly’s pet ambush reporter — on Fox News. Matter of fact, Watters was recently given his own show on Fox. It appears on the weekend and is in keeping with the usual work we’ve seen from Watters.
Apparently Grim was filming Watters doing something and Watters took offense. Here’s what transpired according to social media posts:
.@dceiver there's probably video. Ambush guy snatched my phone, didn't like being filmed, he tried to keep it. That didn't happen.
— Ryan Grim (@ryangrim) May 1, 2016
One thing you do not do is take another person’s cell phone, especially when you consider how expensive some of them can be these days.
A report from the website Crooks and Liars gives us more perspective on the throw down between Grim and Watters:
“Here’s how it went down, per several witness: Grim and Watters were among a group located in a heated tent just outside the main party area. The two apparently don’t have a personal relationship, but Grim realized who Watters was and recalled a beef he had with the O’Reilly Factor correspondent that dated back to 2009, when Watters, known as an ambush journalist, had engineered an on-camera confrontation of writer Amanda Terkel, now a HuffPo colleague of Grim. Terkel’s account of the incident was headlined “I Was Followed, Harassed, And Ambushed By Bill O’Reilly’s Producer.” […]
“Grim decided to give Watters a taste of his own medicine, whipping out his camera phone and filming him. Watters didn’t take well to this, eventually snatching the phone away from Grim and putting it in his pocket. Grim set out to retrieve it, and a scuffle ensued. No cinematic sparring or broken beer bottles, witnesses said, but the two flailed around a bit, upending a table and bumping into several people.”
Another witness recalled:
“Punches were thrown.”
@daveweigel @ryangrim @jessebwatters Which one was for the Oxford comma and which was against?
— Linda Ge (@lindazge) May 1, 2016
Looks like Watters got a taste of his own medicine and didn’t enjoy the flavor. Wonder how O’Reilly will attempt to spin this story in his “No Spin Zone”?
If you haven’t had a chance to catch Watters on Fox, here’s a sample of his routine:
This article was originally published by the same author at BipartisanReport.com.