A 17-year-old boy who disrupted a live broadcast by surprising a CBC reporter with an unwanted kiss before running away has apologized for his actions.
Megan Batchelor was reporting from the Squamish Valley Music Festival, north of Vancouver, on Friday when a stranger came up from behind, kissed her on the cheek, and took a selfie.
The CBC filed a complaint with the RCMP as a result.
Batchelor said on Monday that Daniel Davies reached out to her in a private Twitter message to say sorry.
According to CBC News, Davies told Batchelor:
"At the moment I thought it was kind of a joke, then I stepped in your shoes, that's when I kind of realized that it all was not a joke at all. That's your career — obviously it's also your body and you have complete control of that and without anyone else's consent, they do not have the right to do anything to anyone."
The reporter says she has accepted his apology and hopes it will make people think twice about interrupting journalists while they work.
After the incident, Batchelor received both support and harassment on social media — the latter of which she described as "nauseating."
Batchelor told Metro newspaper that she wasn't offended by a kiss on the cheek.
"I’m offended that someone felt like it was OK for someone to bombard me while I’m doing my job," she said. “I just really hope these people think for a second… this is a conversation that needs to be happening.”
The kiss was just one of many incidents this year where female Canadian journalists have been disrupted on air. Many of the confrontations involved men hurling a vulgar phrase at them while they were reporting live.
With files from The Canadian Press
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