Isa Balado was reporting on a Madrid robbery on Tuesday when he walked up and appeared to touch her bottom, which he denied when she confronted him.

Ms Balado tried to continue, but was interrupted by the programme’s host.

“Isa, forgive me for interrupting you… but did he just touch your bottom?” Nacho Abad asked.

The reporter confirmed it, and Mr Abad told her to put the “idiot” on camera, to which the shot moves to show both Isa Balado and the man, who was still standing with her, smiling and laughing.

“As much as you want to ask what channel we are from, do you really have to touch my bottom? I’m doing a live show and I’m working,” Ms Balado told him.

The man then denied touching her, and as he walked away attempted to tickle her head.

Police later said a man had been arrested for allegedly assaulting a reporter while she was doing a live television show, in a message posted on X, formerly Twitter.

    • kindernacht@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      82
      ·
      1 year ago

      I’m glad the host didn’t let her continue after seeing what happened and called that shit out. Small glimpses of hope in humanity

      • FoundTheVegan@kbin.social
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        43
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        Kinda, but that’s almost the sad part? I don’t want to say the host did anything wrong, he absolutely did not. But the fact that she tried to continue doing the story is the tradgey here.

        Isa was just a woman at her job, and this entitled ass felt comfortable enough groping her to do so on camera. I’m giving a 0% chance this was the first time he has dkne doing something like this, it was just the time it was recorded. She didn’t address it because there is a 100% chance she has had to deal with this behavior before. She was lucky in a sense to get this instant validation against his BS lies. It’s easy enough for him to just laugh it off and keep going, but it’s just so infuriating to see those sorts of laughs again and again.

        The fact that this wasn’t shocking to her, but was shocking to him, should be shocking to everyone else.

        • kindernacht@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          32
          ·
          1 year ago

          You are definitely right. That was kind of my point.

          It’s sad that her immediate response was to feel the need to remain “professional”, instead of slapping the douchebag.

          Hopefully more hosts, producers, and maybe eventually the public can start making this behavior not ok

          • QHC
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            12
            ·
            1 year ago

            instead of slapping the douchebag.

            I’d imagine that is the reaction that at least 50% of male reporters would have had.

            Of course, most of us dudes are so rarely sexually assaulted in public like this that it would be a unique thing, further underscoring the parent’s whole point about the reporter’s reaction being the most tragic part.

            • Givesomefucks@kbin.social
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              15
              ·
              1 year ago

              Nah, continuing a task while trying to process something like this is something the vast majority of humans would do.

              I remember a common repost on reddit. A female reporter in the 60s asked businessmen on the street about sexual harassment and if it was ok to touch their secretaries. The ones that would say it was ok shed start sexually harassing them and they had no fucking clue what to do.

              They reacted the same way, trying to continue the interview but obviously uncomfortable (even tho they had just been flirting with the attractive reporter).

              I’m a guy (a pretty big guy at that) and I’ve had women grope me out of nowhere during my bar days. It’s a mindfuck, and you just kind of go on autopilot while you try to rationalize what’s happening.

              The woman’s reaction in this video is completely normal.

              • QHC
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                2
                ·
                1 year ago

                Thanks for this dose of reality. It doesn’t matter who you are, I should not judge how anyone reacts to inappropriate touching (or just unexpected events in general).

    • phx@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      22
      ·
      1 year ago

      Yeah, it looks like she was going to put up with it in order not to interrupt but the host absolutely had her back in identifying this creepy fucker.

    • TheFriar@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      16
      ·
      1 year ago

      Well done to Spain for making a concerted effort to combat this type of behavior. I lived there for a while a decade+ ago (jesus Christ, has it been that long…) and the sexual aggression from the men was rampant and mind blowing. The women, in my experience, formed a hard exterior against this type of behavior, so there was a balance, but balance doesn’t matter when someone has to become incredibly defensive just because the other people are incredibly aggressive. So I’m glad to see some kind of reckoning with this.

      • Meowoem@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        1 year ago

        Yeah Spain, Italy and to an extent France have real issues with this, it’s just something that’s never been properly addressed until recently.

        I was talking to a French girl once about it, she said ‘if you want to kiss me you have to grab me and kiss me’ I basically said that if she wants to be kissed she has to show she wants to be kissed and for it to be a mutual thing - she told me that’s not sexy in France.

        Would be great if we are seeing that old machismo worldview actually being challenged finally

    • Buffaloaf@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      43
      ·
      1 year ago

      Jesus, that was even worse than I imagined, he literally had to reach over to grope her and then patted her like a dog. But at least the ending was good.

      • Meowoem@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        4
        ·
        1 year ago

        A lot of Europe has problems with this sort of thing, pretty much every woman I know that’s visited Italy has a story of having to flee an aggressive creep trying to grope and harass them. It’s one of those problems that just hasn’t been seriously addressed, people that bring it up are insulted and ignored, they say it’s part of the national character for hot blooded boys to be boys…

        I think it’s starting to change as more youth are on more global communities like tiktok, they see that other people aren’t having to put up with it and aren’t accepting the excuses anymore.

  • QHC
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    71
    ·
    1 year ago

    It was strange to read an article about something recorded on video and see so many uses of “alleged” and “appears to”. Then I watch the video–which, as a surprise twist, the article doesn’t even include–to realize it’s definitely not ambiguous!

    Maybe Spanish libel laws are more strict than I’m used to, but that is some seriously cautious journalism!

  • dystop@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    27
    ·
    1 year ago

    Tomorrow’s news: The play plays the victim on social media and his mum goes on a hunger strike in a church

  • Tischkante@discuss.tchncs.de
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    17
    ·
    1 year ago

    It’s almost funny how absolutely oblivious people like him are to their actions. Even if there wasn’t a camera… he probably really thinks women are into this kind of harassment.

    • JoBo@feddit.uk
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      Men who do this sort of thing are not trying to impress women. They’re trying to impress other men.

  • assassin_aragorn@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    5
    ·
    1 year ago

    It takes a special kind of stupid to do this while knowing that your country is making international headlines after a govt (?) sports official kissed an unwilling player. May he get the book thrown at him hard.

    • Kalash@feddit.ch
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      5
      ·
      1 year ago

      Please, does this look anything like the D.E.N.N.I.S. system? That was clearly an amateur.