CNN Camerawoman Pelted With Nuts At Republican National Convention; CNN Slow To Respond

A CNN camerawoman was pelted with nuts at the Republican National Convention on Tuesday as she was covering the event. The attackers yelled "This is how we feed animals," as they assaulted the African-American camerawoman. Both attackers were quickly escorted out of the Tampa, Florida convention.

While the news broke on Tuesday night, CNN has been remarkably slow on responding to its own employee being attacked in a racially-motivated manner. Despite the fact that it was a CNN employee attacked by RNC attendees, the network did not make any effort to break the news online or on TV.

The news first broke when Take Action News reporter David Schuster tweeted, "GOP attendee ejected for throwing nuts at African American CNN camera woman + saying 'This is how we feed animals.'"

Shortly after Schuster's tweet began making the rounds online, CNN confirmed the incident that night, releasing a statement to Talking Points Memo. While the statement does not elaborate on the incident or make specific mention of the camerawoman or the nuts being thrown, it is clearly in reference to the CNN camerawoman's attack.

The CNN statement reads, "CNN can confirm there was an incident directed at an employee inside the Tampa Bay Times Forum earlier this afternoon. CNN worked with convention officials to address this matter and will have no further comment."

It was only Wednesday morning that the cable news giant responded to the attack on their own website, writing a short, five-paragraph story on the event for their Political Ticker blog. The camerawoman's race and affiliation with CNN is only briefly mentioned, with much of the story being dedicated to different responses to the attack.

In fact, the Republican National Convention was quicker to respond to the incident than CNN. The RNC quickly released a formal statement on the encounter, saying "Two attendees tonight exhibited deplorable behavior. Their conduct was inexcusable and unacceptable. This kind of behavior will not be tolerated."

While it's understandable that CNN may want to avoid the appearance of bias in reporting on this incident, their lack of coverage on a story that attracted a huge amount of buzz online seems odd.

It's only natural that a company would want to protect their camerawoman from being pelted with food by angry racists, right? So why is CNN doing so little to defend their employee?