I think hate-crimes laws are illiberal and I’m not comfortable with people being fined or jailed for saying and thinking things, even hateful, evil, odious, and false things. Europeans obviously have a different perspective, and not without good reason. That being written, here’s a notable case of a reporter becoming the news:

A prominent anti-racism activist who gave evidence in the trial of a Greek author who denies the Holocaust, has found himself the target of a hate campaign involving death threats being waged on the Internet. Panayote Dimitras, of the human rights organisation GHM, testified in the December 2007 trial as a prosecution witness in the trial of author Kostas Plevris. Plevris, a lawyer and author of the book “Jews: The Whole Truth”, which denies the Holocaust, was convicted of inciting racial hatred and given a 14-month suspended sentence. Following Dimitras’ testimony, a journalist from the Greek state TV Channel NET called him “scum” and attempted to assault him. The video clip of the incident was later posted on the video-sharing site, YouTube, by an extreme right-wing [sic] youth group. Below the video, insults and death threats were posted, as well as anti-Semitic messages, such as “Death to the Jewish bastards” and “No Jew should remain in our country”.