On Monday, terrible news broke that Fox News state department correspondent Benjamin Hall was hospitalized while reporting outside Kyiv. And according to accounts, he was in a non-military area and the damage may be in regards to his legs.
A little before 2:00 p.m. Eastern, Fox News anchor John Roberts broke the news that “we hate to pass along to you, but it’s obviously what happens something in the middle of conflict.”
“A Fox News journalist has been injured while newsgathering outside of Kyiv. Very few details, but teams on the ground are working as hard as they can to try to gather more information,” he said. “A reminder, of course, this is in a war zone, that information changes very quickly and we are working as hard as possible to get the best information we that we possibly can and get all the details on what has happened.”
And about an hour later, we got more of the horrific details. Breaking in again, Roberts read from this statement from the company announcing the journalist in question was indeed Hall:
Memo just sent to Fox News employees on injuries sustained today by a network correspondent in Kyiv, Benjamin Hall: pic.twitter.com/JvFid5qBue
— Michael M. Grynbaum (@grynbaum) March 14, 2022
The emotion in Roberts’ voice was obvious.
Following a commercial break, co-anchor Sandra Smith returned with Roberts and told viewers, “we’re all praying for Ben.” And Roberts noted “We don’t know the extent of his injuries yet, but we are all praying for him and for his family that he comes back to us.”
There does seem to be some early accounts of Hall condition and they’re not pretty.
According to a Facebook post Ukraine’s prosecutor general, Irina Venediktova (via the translation from Facebook), which included a picture of Hall’s press credentials, “The explosive fracture of two lower ends – a ‘russskomirnyj’ diagnosis, made by Ukrainian doctors to a British journalist.”
Through the possibly bad translation from Facebook, it seems Halls was the victim of some sort of explosion that did damage to his legs.
“This man was not at a military facility, where according to Russian officials, they are constantly targeting. Not being at a military facility, he suffered serious injuries,” she added.
Hall wasn’t the first American journalist to become a victim in the conflict. Over the weekend, an award-winning filmmaker for TIME Studios, Brent Renaud was killed while reporting on the war outside Kyiv as well.
“Kyiv police said Renaud died after Russian forces opened fire on his car in Irpin, which is just outside the capital of Kyiv,” Politico reported on the tragedy. “American journalist Juan Arredondo was traveling with Renaud when both were shot, the Associated Press reported. Arredondo was wounded in the lower back.”
Hall’s condition is a breaking story and NewsBusters will update when we get more information.