In the ever-shrinking, incessantly short-handed world of traditional media, where they’re rarely ever more than a few months away from the next round of layoffs, employees are constantly being asked to multi-task. On Monday night, CBS Miami reporter Samantha Rivera took the concept of multi-tasking to an extreme level.
Rivera was working in Las Vegas Tuesday night, covering Game 2 of the Stanley Cup Final between the Florida Panthers and the Vegas Golden Knights. After the game, which Vegas won 7-2, Rivera was reporting on the game on live TV. Most reporters are asked to go into these public situations with only their camera person for “security.”
Right in the middle of Rivera’s report, she was interrupted by a fan who tried to jump in front of the camera, presumably to get his five seconds of fame. But without missing a beat, Rivera quickly put a stop to it. And it’s made her an internet sensation over the past 24 hours.
“I could see the guy and another guy out of the corner of my eye,” Rivera told Sports Illustrated. “It looked like they were staring at us right before we were about to go live, and I think at one point I saw them pointing at us, too. But we were already on camera, and I was afraid they were gonna take me too early, so I wanted to tell my photographer something, but I couldn’t, so I just kept my eye on him.
“And then I don’t know if I heard him or felt him, but I sensed him, and the second I did, my arm just came out. It’s not gonna happen! I was annoyed.”
If providing her own security with a fierce straight-arm weren’t enough to prove that, Rivera took to Twitter herself Monday night to tune up anyone who might be thinking of a repeat performance in the future.
As impressive as the straight-arm was, Rivera’s matter-of-fact calmness was the icing on the cake. Using just one arm, she had just manhandled an intrusive fan who, for all she knew, could have been planning to cause her bodily harm. But after shoving him out of the way, she calmly did the thing she was trained to do.
She went to tonight’s game highlights, like it was just another day at the office.
Naturally, after 12 million views, the internet had to weigh in.
