Trey Yingst Joins The Ranks of Renowned War Reporters With Crucial Coverage of the Israel-Hamas War
It’s been 30 days since Hamas launched a horrific attack on Israel, sparking a war and further destabilizing a historically dangerous area of conflict. At Fox News, one reporter has stood out thanks to his coverage: Trey Yingst, the network’s foreign correspondent.
The war has captured global attention, and major networks and news outlets have dispatched some of their best journalists to cover it. There are a raft of incredible wartime journalists in the area doing world-class and life-risking reporting. But Yingst has stood out as the new face who just might be out-hustling them all.
Media criticism so often focuses on darting arrows at mistakes or gaffes (literally, the criticism); it too often neglects to offer earnest laurels to brave and vital work. Yingst has done an admirable job for some time, including covering the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The past month has only cemented his place among other star cable news war reporters. At NBC News, Richard Engel is a titan in the industry. CNN’s Clarrisa Ward is, too. They have few peers. Welcome aboard, Trey.
Don’t just take my word for it. Dr. Richard Vatz, a journalism professor at Towson, noted the same in a deep dive praise of Yingst titled “Trey Yingst: the Current Generation’s Top War Correspondent.” Vatz writes:
Yingst has proved over the last couple of weeks to be the best war correspondent of this war and one of the best of any war, per his preparedness, his knowledge, his clear articulation nearing eloquence, his awareness of what security concerns allow him to say and withhold, and, of course, his bravery.
“Watching this brave young (30) journalist excel in report after report while maintaining the ethics of his occupation is exhilarating,” Vatz concludes. “Watch him. I wish he had been my student. He’s the best.”
The examples of his exemplary work are numerous, but a few stand out. Just this weekend, he was one of the first American cable news reporters to enter Gaza while Israel was waging an ongoing attack. There was the emotional retelling of the video of Hamas-led atrocities that Yingst said were “too disturbing to explain on TV.” Or the shocking moment a Hamas-fired rocket landed a mere 100 feet from him and his production crew.
The dangers of reporting from a warzone are real, as Yingst knows too well. A Russian missile killed his Fox News colleague Pierre Zakrewski. The same strike nearly killed Benjamin Hall, leaving him with permanent wounds.
From day one of the attacks, Yingst has been nearly ubiquitous on Fox News, providing sober, reliable, and urgent reporting. A search on the transcript database TVEyes reveals his name has been mentioned on Fox News 475 times since October 7. In the months before that, his name was mentioned on-air just seven times per month.
None of this will come as a surprise to those who followed Yingst’s coverage in Ukraine or other foreign conflicts since he joined Fox News. True Yingst stans will recall the shockingly solid job he did as a White House correspondent during the Trump administration for OAN, a propaganda outlet for the former president.
His remarkable ascent was always the plan.
I met Trey at the Mediaite/UTA party that kicked off the 2019 White House Correspondents Dinner. When I asked him how he liked lending his reputational credibility to OAN, he took the high road and shared with me his broader aspirations.
He didn’t care for covering DC politics because he found it distasteful and incestuous (spot on!). His real goal was to become a war correspondent in the Middle East. I was impressed by his ambition. I’m even more impressed now by the reality.
This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.
