The Words Used by WDBJ Reporter Alison Parker That Killer Claimed Were ‘Racist’ and Apparently Made Her a Target for On-Air Execution
Aug. 28, 2015 9:35am Dave Urbanski
When Alison Parker was an intern at WDBJ in 2012, Vester Lee Flanagan — then a reporter for the station — heard her utter what he apparently considered to be racist words.
Parker made reference to “swinging” by a destination and also referred to heading out into the “field,” according to Flanagan’s 2013 complaint with the station, the New York Post reported.
Parker wasn’t disciplined over her word choices, the Post reported, and Flanagan was fired a month after leveling his racism accusations against Parker, which were part of his failed discrimination lawsuit against the station.
Two years later, Flanagan fatally shot Parker, 24, and TV cameraman Adam Ward, 27, during a live news broadcast Wednesday morning. On the run, using a Twitter account under his on-air name Bryce Williams, Flanagan cited Parker’s “racist comments” in a stream of tweets. Police said Flanagan died later that day of a
“That’s how that guy’s mind worked,” Ryan Fuqua, a WDBJ video editor, told the New York Post of Flanagan’s racism claims. “Just crazy, left-field assumptions like that.”
“[Those words are] just common, everyday talk. [But] that was his MO — to start s**t,” Fuqua added. “He was unstable. One time, after one of our live shots failed, he threw all his stuff down and ran into the woods for like 20 minutes.”
WDBJ cameraman Trevor Fair recalled others using the term “field” around Flanagan: “We would say stuff like, ‘The reporter’s out in the field.’ And he would look at us and say, ‘What are you saying, ‘cotton fields’? That’s racist,’” he told the Post.
“We’d be like, ‘What?’” he added. “We all know what that means, but he took it as cotton fields, and therefore we’re all racists.”
“This guy was a nightmare,” Fair told the Post. “Management’s worst nightmare.”
Then there was the time a station manager brought in watermelon for all employees. “Of course, he thought that was racist. He was like, ‘You’re doing that because of me.’ No, the general manager brought in watermelon for the entire news team. He’s like, ‘Nope, this is out for me. You guys are calling me out because I’m black.’”
7-Eleven’s sale of watermelon-flavored Slurpees didn’t escape Flanagan’s observations, either.
“It’s not a coincidence, they’re racist,” Fair recalled Flanagan saying.
One of Parker’s former classmates, who is black, said the slain reporter was anything but racist.
“When I took [my journalism] job, she recommended me,” Jessica Albert, who attended James Madison University with Parker, told the Associated Press. “She did that for me, so she’s definitely not a racist.”
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