ABC News Reporter On Being Interrupted By Publicist: “That Frequency and Aggression of Interruption I Have Not Seen Personally Before’

5WPR CEO Ronn Torossian was recently monitoring an interview between his client, television evangelist Benny Hinn and ABC News’ Dan Harris. Not happy with Harris’ questions, Torossian interrupts the interview several times, all of which made it into the final segment.

“Aren’t there some other issues besides healing that we could discuss?” Torossian asked. To which Hinn, Torossian’s client responded, “No, no, no, I’m fine with that” and “I’m really enjoying this, this is important.”

Not satisfied, Torossian tried towards the end of the interview to get a plug in for Hinn’s book. “You don’t know about the book?” Torossian asked Harris. Hinn responded, “Ronn, that’s not important,” and rolled his eyes.

Reached for comment, Harris told PRNewser, “Publicists once in a while will interrupt interviews, but that frequency and aggression of interruption I have not seen personally before. It was a combination of frequency and ferocity which made it stand out. We all see on TV publicists interrupting interviews, it happens, but I haven’t seen it at this level…it was either four or five times he interrupted me.”

We asked Harris whether it was a tough decision to leave the footage in the final piece, to which he said it was “totally a no brainer.” “I’ll be honest, as any journalist you want tension,” he said, “but I don’t think it was a cheap shot, because Benny Hinn‘s reaction, he insisted this was important, which I thought was revealing about his character. That’s really why we left it in, not just because it was some fireworks and we should use it. In this case I thought Benny Hinn‘s response to Ronn’s interruptions was important editorially.”

The exchange begins with 3:35 left in the segment, and then again with :35 left.

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