Pumpkin Fest organizer Ruth Sterling made international headlines this weekend when during a live broadcast from her event on Cheshire TV by local newsman Jared Goodell, she stormed onto the set, grabbed at his microphone and threatened to take him off the air. With over 100,000 views and climbing, the original clip is one of the top five most popular videos of all time on the Free Keene youtube channel.
Sterling was interviewed this morning on WKBK by Dan Mitchell where she complained that the original viral clip did not show the context of what made her storm the set. If you recall from the clip, she alleged that Jared had been “inciting” people, “alarming” pumpkin fest attendees, and “self-promoting”. As you can see in this clip which shows what came before the original, he’s doing none of those things – he’s merely reporting what he’s heard and reading a statement from the president of Keene State College. All I’ve edited out of the following clip is the commercial break, which lasted for about 1 minute:
Jared says of the newly released clip:
“This newly released video provides context to what was I reporting on when Ms. Sterling stormed the live TV set. It is clear that my reporting was based on facts and intended to warn viewers at home of safety dangers which could have been taking place outside their home.”
According to CTV’s Executive Director Lee Perkins, after Sterling left the camera’s view she went around to each CTV crew member, including Perkins and demanded they take Jared off-the-air. They refused and she proceeded to search for the power adapter to literally “pull the plug”. She was unable to locate it and ultimately left.
In a subsequent interview with “Talking Points Memo” she called Jared a “punk” and said,
“When he heard about the trouble in the college neighborhoods, he chose to ‘do his job’ of being a Fox-news style ‘reporter,’…His tone and language was deemed dangerous and inciting to a large, peaceful assembly.”
Clearly, she’s delusional. That said, watch the full clip above and decide for yourself.
Stay tuned here to Free Keene for the latest on the Pumpkin Fest 2014 riots.
