Katie Couric has described how two of her producers were hit by a ‘urine bomb’ while she was covering the protests in Charlottesville last week.
The broadcast journalist, 60, was in Charlottesville covering the rally as part of a six-hour documentary series she is working on for National Geographic.
Couric wrote an op-ed that was published Friday by the outlet as a way for her to ‘reflect on her experiences’.
In the op-ed titled ‘Being in Charlottesville Broke My Heart. It Also Filled Me With Hope’, Couric said two of her producers were splashed with a mixture of mud and urine.
‘Observing the rising battle of protest chants, two of my producers were standing on an elevated edge of the park when suddenly they were doused with a concoction of human urine and mud,’ Couric wrote.
Katie Couric, 60, (pictured in May) has described how two of her National Geographic producers were hit by a ‘urine bomb’ while she was covering the violent protests in Charlottesville last Saturday. She wrote about the experience in an op-ed published Friday
Couric was in Charlottesville covering the rally as part of a six-hour documentary series she is working on for National Geographic about ‘the revolutions happening in our culture, communities and families’. Pictured: Protesters and counter-protesters clash at the Unite the Right rally last Saturday
‘It was thrown into the air over the crowd from what they think was a water bottle. They’re still unsure who threw it and who exactly was targeted.’
Couric had already mentioned the incident in a tweet last Saturday.
She wrote: ‘Two of my producers just got sprayed with urine. Lovely. Hard to keep your cool.’
In the op-ed, Couric continued to explain other encounters that were happening around her.
‘Around the same time, a large and violent brawl broke out near the corner of East Market and 2nd Street,’ she wrote.
‘Standing on the hillside at the entrance to the park, we looked out over the sea of people struggling to take cover.
‘We saw projectiles being thrown back and forth, including bottles and brown colored balloons (which another reporter told me were filled with feces).’
Anti-fascist counter-protesters wait outside Lee Park to hurl insults as white nationalists, neo-Nazis and members of the ‘alt-right’ are forced out after the Unite the Right rally was declared an unlawful gathering on August 12 in Charlottesville, Virginia
White nationalists, neo-Nazis and members of the ‘alt-right’ clash with police as they are forced out of Lee Park last Saturday
Couric spent 72 hours in Charlottesville leading up to the Unite the Right rally that turned violent last Saturday.
The National Geographic television series she was working on is about ‘the revolutions happening in our culture, communities and families’.
She said the first episode covers the ‘national conversation taking place over monuments and statues’.
‘I knew Charlottesville was at the epicenter of the debate because of the statue of the man at the center of town: Robert E. Lee,’ she wrote.
‘There’s been so much said and written about what happened there, I felt I needed to give my own account of my three days in Charlottesville.
‘It’s become the symbol of where we are, as Americans in 2017, and it breaks my heart. But it also fills me with hope.’
Couric (pictured in July) said in her op-ed that the assignment in Charlottesville wasn’t just an assignment to her, but that it felt more personal since she graduated from the University of Virginia and her late sister was a state senator in Charlottesville for ten years
Besides describing her time in Charlottesville for the 72 hours she spent there, Couric also explained how her assignment felt more personal.
Couric graduated from the University of Virginia and her late sister had been a state senator in Charlottesville for ten years.
Couric recently left Yahoo News where she had been working since early 2014. The two years before that she had been a global correspondent on ABC.
She had previously spent 16 years on NBC’s Today show and later worked at CBS.