Activo Deportes
You need to expect the unexpected when you’re in the business of live television. However, there’s only so much you can do to prepare for unanticipated scenarios, which certainly applies to an interview on a show in Mexico that was derailed when one of the people involved was carjacked while conducting it.
Remote interviews are a staple of television programs that are dedicated to covering trending and breaking stories, whether we’re talking about news broadcasts that routinely cut to correspondents outside the studio or sports-centric offerings that feature a steady rotation of reporters and talking heads beaming in.
There’s only so much you can do to control what’s going on around you when you’re reporting from the field (or, in the case of one man who famously had a BBC interview crashed by his kids, in your own home), and journalists who are tasked with live coverage of public events need to be vigilant when it comes to bystanders who can’t resist the urge to try to crash their segement or commandeer their microphone.
However, that’s far from the only way things can go awry, as evidenced by a recent interview where a Mexican sportswriter was robbed while conducting an interview in his car.
A sports journalist and communications director was carjacked while conducting an interview with a television show in Mexico
Fernando Vargas Nolasco is a sports journalist in Mexico who juggles a number of different roles, including his job as a columnist for Eje Central, a professor at Universidad Amerike in Mexico City, the CEO of a digital agency, and the communications director for Liga Nacional de Baloncesto Profesional, the country’s premier basketball league.
According to Awful Announcing, Vargas appeared on the Activo Deportes program Bla, bla, bla deportivo to chat with Ed Martínez about hoops in a live interview that he conducted from his car in the Mexican state of Morelos on Monday.
However, the segment was derailed in alarming fashion after he was approached by a gun-wielding man who demanded the keys to the vehicle along with his phone and wallet.
🔴El periodista deportivo Fernando Vargas fue asaltado en plena transmisión en vivo en Morelos.
Mientras realizaba un enlace, sujetos abrieron su auto, lo obligaron a bajar y le quitaron sus pertenencias.pic.twitter.com/1vVgmZvNif
— Azucena Uresti (@azucenau) May 20, 2026
Univision reports Vargas was understandably shaken by the incident but otherwise unharmed, and he filed a report with the National Guard and local police in the hopes of tracking down the culprit.