I think it's fair to say that the Freedom Convoy is not like anything we've seen before. The protest is getting bigger by the day and more permanent. This time it's different. They want to control the narrative as there is a huge mistrust of the main stream media. It's gotten to the point were we are sent out with body guards for every shift. They jeer the moment they see us and don't see us as legit. Not just CTV, but any outlet. They see as the enemy using the phrase from Donald Trump first used in 2017.

They have quite a few YouTube channels broadcasting the every day happenings themselves. Some of them have split screens with multi-cam feeds with commentary. None of them were really "professional" and almost all of them were kinda hard to watch. Some of the video broadcasts were upwards of three hours in length.

I don't use my Twitter account everyday but I use it every once in a while when I have a picture or event to share on social media. Today I overheard a conversation in the newsroom that made sense to me.

Overheard in our newsroom. "I've been a cameraman for over 40 years and I've never seen anything like this. Usually during a protest, they used to understand the power of the media and grant us prime locations to film it.

But this is different. Now they see us as the enemy."

So... the comments and replies to my twitter comment are through the roof. I was quoting someone in the business for over 40 years. It is not my personal opinion. It was someone else's comment and that's why it was in quotations. I was happy to see Graham Richardson retweet with his comment. Graham has over 30 years experience as a journalist. He has worked at a number of different TV stations across Canada as a parliamentary correspondent, a Los Angeles bureau chief and now as the anchor of CTV News Ottawa I'm sure he's seen his fair share of protests.

Like most of the stuff I post on Twitter, it was a mere observation. Within one day of my post on twitter, I think it's fair to say it went viral with three million impressions. I eventually turned the comment section off because I was getting too many notifications. Of course, they felt I was hiding something by doing that.

• Three million immpressions

• Two hundred and thirty-four thousand engagements

• One hundred and forty-seven thousand detail expands

• Forty thousand likes

• Eight thousand retweets

• Five thousand nine hundred comments

Twitter Metrics

The Comment Section

Not lacking any awareness. It's someone else's comment.

Never claimed to be a journalist. It's someone else's comment.

I did think about it. I thought the protest was about vaccine mandates?

As a cameraman, I think the above cartoon is humorous but not really based on reality. We reported on it because we should have. Did we dwell on it? No.

Covering the convoy, there are a lot of American flags, Trump flags, Brandon flags and Trump parrots calling the media as the enemy. Even Fox News is here with coverage. Trump's original comment was from February 2017.

Poilievre flag was photographed just outside of Bancroft Ontario. Probably not official but shows American influence.