The state-owned Vietnam Multimedia Corporation, better known as Vietnam Television Corporation (VTC), has suspended a cameraman for swearing at a female colleague and beating her for blocking his camera as they were covering a divorce trial in Ho Chi Minh City on Monday.

The director of VTC, Tran Duc Thanh, decided on Tuesday to temporarily ban cameraman Tran Van Vuong, who is under the management of the multimedia corporation’s center in southern Vietnam, from work for 15 days from Wednesday for clarifying his breaking the media code of conduct.

The Southern Center of VTC sent a team to report on a divorce between the chairman of coffee giant Trung Nguyen and his wife at the High People’s Court in Ho Chi Minh City on Monday, the television station said.  

Vuong engaged in a heated exchange with H.P., a female reporter from Lao Dong (Labor) newspaper.

Their row was recorded by many reporters and uploaded to social media.

VTC’s Southern Center convened a meeting with Vuong and relevant personnel on Monday morning to listen to a detailed account by the cameraman.

Social media videos, reports by the lensman and another accompanying reporter, and their video records of the trial led VTC to conclude that Vuong had warned H.P. many times for blocking his camera but she refused to cooperate, resulting in the quarrel between them.

On Monday afternoon, the Southern Center also had a meeting with representatives of Lao Dong, the advisor to the newspaper’s chief editor, and other relevant people.

Vuong apologized to H.P. and her newspaper in this meeting for his ill manners, promising to chalk it up to experience.

In viral videos, the cameraman was heard swearing at the female reporter and even threatening to continue beating her up as he viewed her “as animals, not a woman,” even after he had hit her on the head with the lens.

One male photojournalist nearby stepped in to deter the cameraman but he kept behaving aggressively toward the female reporter, hurling repeated insults at her.

Posts condemning his aggressiveness and foul mouth went viral on Facebook before VTC decided to discipline him.  

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