The following is a true story, a little embarrassing but an insight into the post YouTube world in TV news. Tonight I did a story on a rape that took place Sunday morning May 4th at a residence near the U of M. The 20-year-old victim was surprised when she came home by an attacker who raped her. She escaped by jumping out a second story window. Eight days ago a U of M student was raped in her dorm at the U.
One bit of advice from the MPD on their crime alert – take a self-defense course. I tracked down Anita Bendickson who teaches self-defense at the U. Among her surprising bits of advice was that if you are attacked don’t pull away, grab the attacker back and then knee him in the you know where.
Which get me back to groping Don Shelby. And YouTube. Producer Matt Liddy thought it would be compelling TV for me to demonstrate this live on the 10pm news. Don Shelby would be the attacker. He would grab me. I would then grab him back and pretend to you now knee him in the …..
Which brings me to YouTube. I was scared that I would screw up, maybe give Don a smooch (he is kind of cute!) or perhaps throw him to the ground. Or more likely he would throw me to the ground, the matter would degenerate and it would all end up on YouTube. For the world to see.
Maybe no one would care.
Call me paranoid.
The real bottom line is that Anita Bendickson gave photojournalist Kris Berg and me a mini-course on self-defense (it’s really worth while and runs about 14 minutes). It’s really great information – just click on the link here! Stay Safe!
