'Really hard to take': TV reporter breaks down during live news cross
A veteran CNN reporter has broken down during a live cross on the US coronavirus crisis in what has been described as a “powerful moment”.
Sara Sidner, who has reported on wars and terrorist attacks, was doing a live cross with anchor Alisyn Camerota when she broke down in tears and struggled to deliver her report about the coronavirus.
“This is the 10th hospital that I have been in,” the reporter, based in the US city of Los Angeles, said as her voice began to break.
As she tried to regroup and apologised to the anchor, she attempted to deliver the sentence again before she broke down.
She said that she was going to try and get through the report before striving to tell the news story a third time.
“This is the 10th hospital that I have been in and to see the way that these families have to live after this, and the heartache that goes so far and so wide,” she said through tears.
“It’s really hard to take.”
Los Angeles is one of many US cities to be rocked by coronavirus which has claimed almost 389,000 lives across the country. In LA alone there have been 12,387 deaths Johns Hopkins University data shows.
After apologising again, Camerota said not to apologise and we’d all been struck by the collective grief.
“And to see these families who are soldiering through it, who are persevering and have had to have funerals in parking lots, like the ones that you showed us,” the anchor said.
“It is just a collective trauma that all of us are living through and Sara we all appreciate the heart that you bring to this every single day as well as your excellent reporting.”
Sidner added “it’s just not OK” what people were doing to each other.
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“These families should not be going through this, no family should be going through this,” she said.
“Don’t let this be you, do whatever you can to keep this from killing your family members and your neighbours and your friends and your teachers.”
ABC journalist Faith Abubéy shared a clip of the live cross on Twitter and said it was a “powerful moment”.
“Nothing but respect for Sara Sidner,” one person commented.
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Sidner later tweeted it was not her proudest moment as a reporter but she could not hold it back.
“I’m still not okay after seeing the heartbreak in the City of Angels because of coronavirus,” she said.
“I know that being there to see the destruction it’s doing to families is small in comparison to the pain the families feel.
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