Frontlines TPUSA Reporter, Savanah Hernandez, spoke with Alex Clark this past weekend at the Women’s Leadership Summit (WLS), discussing the incident she was involved with in Minneapolis, Minnesota in which she was assaulted while covering a protest.
A major theme of the discussion was the effect the experience had on both her life and reporting since. She described what happened.
“I was surrounded and I had an entire family, a mother, a father, and a daughter who all took turns beating me up,” she noted. “Every… time I turned to leave, I was punched. I was pushed, I was shoved, and I ended up being slammed to the ground by a man that was double my size.”
Hernandez credits the mentorship and advice Charlie Kirk provided her as a major influence in her reporting style.
“Thanks to Charlie, and thanks to everything that he has taught me – his mentorship and his guidance – I really started to calm down and kind of just try to talk to people,” Hernandez said, noting the journalistic need to avoid confrontation as well. “And so even when these people are screaming in my face, I immediately just resort to journalism mode.”
Hernandez even said she was worried about speaking at WLS.
“I was up till 3 a.m. because I was like, what am I going to say to all of these beautiful ladies? But for some reason, they just put anybody up on this stage because here I am today,” she joked.
“There’s never going to be a moment when you’re not afraid, but you just got to do it anyway. Riley Gaines equated this to taking a rep in the gym, just keep doing it and you’re going to get stronger, it’s going to get easier, and like I said in this speech, lean on Christ because you cannot do anything without him,” Hernandez said toward the conclusion of her speech.
