Radio-Canada journalist Valerie-Micaela Bain wants the public's help in identifying a man who assaulted her while she was reporting from Montreal's Osheaga music festival.
Bain was on-air Friday when a man approached her from behind and kissed her on the cheek as she was reporting live. She quickly shoved him aside and resumed her report.
She posted video to her Facebook page, where you can see it unfold at :37:
"Don't worry, I trust the power of social networks and the police to find you," Bain wrote on Facebook in French. "You wouldn't kiss me if you saw me on the street, it's not suddenly acceptable because I'm a woman in front of a live camera on TV... Kissing someone without consent is a no."
She added: "In the end I would like him to understand why his gesture is unacceptable."
Common harassment
Harassment of female journalists has become too common. Another CBC journalist who was reporting on new safety measures for women at Osheaga said that she was harassed and had one man yell a vulgar phrase at her.
Earlier this week, a man shouted a sexually explicit slur at CBC journalist Carolyn Stokes while she was covering the Royal St. John's Regatta.
Peter Gullage, executive producer for CBC Newfoundland and Labrador, said on Friday that Stokes was doing a lakeside interview when a young man ran up and screamed the phrase — often abbreviated as "FHRITP" — as a friend recorded it.
"It happened in full HD — the guy ran up to Carolyn and yelled it," Gullage said. "From our point of view, it's workplace harassment."
The CBC filed a complaint to police and the man who shouted the slur has apologized.
... it's workplace harassment.Peter Gullage, CBC
This week, a man accused of shouting the same slur at another St. John's news reporter in April pleaded not guilty to mischief.
NTV reporter Heather Gillis was interviewing a city councillor when a man in a passing truck allegedly called out the phrase. She said it was the third time she has been targeted with the expression since she started working at the broadcaster in 2011.
The phenomenon has plagued journalists in the United States and Canada since 2015, with one of the more high-profile cases involving a heckler screaming it at a reporter, who was covering a Toronto FC soccer game.
Toronto's CityNews reporter Shauna Hunt confronted several men about their use of the sexually explicit remarks while doing fan interviews. One of them was subsequently fired from his job.
In Calgary, police charged a man with a traffic offence in 2015 after he hurled the same vulgarity at a CBC journalist.
That same year, a teen surprised CBC reporter Megan Batchelor with an unwelcome kiss while she was reporting live from the Squamish Music Festival in B.C. The teenager later apologized but not before Batchelor herself received hostile messages and harassment online.
With files from The Canadian Press