Fox News Reporter Trey Yingst Remembers Cameraman Pierre Zakrzewski
For more than a month, Fox News foreign correspondent Trey Yingst reported from Ukraine, covering the days leading up to Russia’s invasion on Feb. 24 and the nation’s effort to push back the Russian military in the weeks that followed.
Yingst was reporting from Kyiv on March 14, when Fox News cameraman Pierre Zakrzewski and Ukrainian journalist Oleksandra “Sasha” Kuvshynova (who was working as a “fixer” for Fox) were killed when their vehicle was struck by incoming fire in a suburb of the capital city. Fox News State Department correspondent Benjamin Hall was seriously wounded in the attack and is now receiving medical care in the U.S.
Yingst knew Zakrzewski well, having paired with him in a number of conflict zones, including in Ukraine, just weeks before his death.
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“Pierre was the best photojournalist I have ever worked with. He was selfless. He cared about the people. And he spent every waking hour doing what he could not only getting the story out to the world, but helping other journalists, freelancers, to have the resources they needed to continue reporting,” Yingst told The Hollywood Reporter in an interview last week. “He and I had something in common. And that is that we are consumed by this job. We love the responsibility that comes with going to dangerous places, in order to show the world what is happening there.”
As for Sasha, Yingst noted that they were close in age (he’s 28, she was 24), and he worked with her on a number of stories around Kyiv. “She wanted to let the world know what was happening to her country,” he said.
Zakrzewski’s funeral was held last week in his home country of Ireland, and Yingst was in attendance. “It was beautiful to meet his family. It was beautiful to meet his friends, and I think it helped me to understand where this bubbly and selfless person came from. It was an honor to be there, and to celebrate his life,” he says.
“Everything you see in the field of me from Ukraine, every single frame of me in the field, was shot by Pierre,” Yingst said. “There is an image of me out there, with Sasha and me standing interviewing a soldier at a checkpoint. They were hard workers, they wanted to get this story out to the world, their loss is tragic, and it is devastating, but I am committed to trying to continue to tell stories in their honor. Because that is the role that I can play now, to keep doing the work that they would have done.”
In the hours after the attack, Yingst and his team linked up with CNN correspondent Clarissa Ward, calling local hospitals to try and locate their colleagues. Because even though network correspondents are competing for stories and airtime, they are also taking on the same risks, which in turn leads to professional esteem.
“This is a small industry, and I have great respect for correspondents at other networks. They do the same thing we do; they put their lives on the line to get critical information out to the world,” he said. “I am grateful for Clarissa and her team, and I am grateful to be a part of this industry because the people who are in this line of work, there are very few of them, and they are committed to helping the world understand what is happening in these war zones. There definitely is a camaraderie. It takes bravery and it takes commitment to the craft, when you are told that the Russians could surround this city, and bombard it, as they have done in part from the northwest and northeast, it takes a certain type of person to say, ‘I’m staying.'”
Ukraine has proven to be deadly for journalists, but as the war has dragged on, one challenge is continuing to make sure Americans understand what is happening there, and to make them care about the atrocities being committed. And Yingst, who joined the channel in 2018, and signed a multiyear deal in 2021, believes that he is the right person to be showing the devastation to Fox’s audience, the largest in cable news by a wide margin.
“I hope that people understand that there are still millions of innocent Ukrainians at risk. Make no mistake, there are people dying, their lives are being uprooted, and while there is a strong effort to push back the Russians, there is no indication that this is anywhere close to over,” Yingst said. “I am always asking myself, as we are reporting, ‘How are people going to care about this, thousands of miles away?’ Everyone has their own experience amid a war. We are literally shining light in dark places. I feel it is very important to be on the front lines of conflict, telling those stories, because if we can find humans who are, despite all odds living through this hell on earth, we can tell their stories to the world — and if we can tell it in a way that people understand, they will care.”
And even now that he has left Ukraine (he was in New York last week when we spoke, and will return soon to his home base in Jerusalem), Yingst says he still can’t let go of what he saw in his five weeks there. Even though he says he tries to clear his mind by exercising and meditating every day, Yingst continues to share updates from sources on the ground in-country.
“Maybe to my detriment, I am not able to fully let go of a story. I love this job. I am consumed by it,” he said. “I feel like we have a massive responsibility to let the world know what is happening, to hold people accountable for the words that they say, to show what is happening on the ground up close, to make people care.”
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