UPDATE: It is now known that Benjamin Hall’s team was struck by Russian artillery fire, and that two of his members were killed. The Ministry of Defense in Ukraine reports that Hall is dead. lost part of his leg.
Fox News State Department correspondent Benjamin Hall, a Fox News reporter from the United States, was taken to hospital Monday while reporting in Kyiv (Ukraine). According to reports, he was not in military territory and that the injury may have been to his legs.
A little before 2:00 p.m. Eastern and before Hall’s identity was confirmed, 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” in that a reporter had sustained injuries while in harm’s way.
“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.”
The horrific details were repeated about an hour later. Roberts entered again and read this company statement, which confirmed that Hall was actually the journalist.
Just sent a memo to Fox News staff regarding the injuries that Benjamin Hall sustained today while covering Kyiv for Fox News. pic.twitter.com/JvFid5qBue
— Michael M. Grynbaum (@grynbaum) March 14, 2022
The emotion in Roberts’s 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 that included a picture of Hall’s press credentials (via the translation from Facebook), “The explosive fracture of two lower ends – a ‘russskomirnyj’ diagnosis, made by Ukrainian doctors to a British journalist.”
The poor translation provided by Google suggests that Halls was the casualty of an explosion which caused 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. An award-winning filmmaker was among the victims over the weekend. TIME Studios and other former New York TimesBrent Renaud, a photographer, was also killed reporting on the conflict outside Kyiv.
“Kyiv police said Renaud died after Russian forces opened fire on his car in Irpin, which is just outside the capital of Kyiv,” PoliticoThe tragedy was reported. “American journalist Juan Arredondo was traveling with Renaud when both were shot, the Associated Press reported. Arredondo was wounded in the lower back.”
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