Q&A: Fox News foreign correspondent Trey Yingst on the perils of covering war

As a foreign correspondent for Fox News, Trey Yingst has spent the past several years in some of the most dangerous places in the world, including covering two wars. At just 30 years old, Yingst has already established himself as one of the best international war reporters in television.

I spoke with Yingst via email this week and we talked about his latest reporting, the danger he has been in and how he is coping with covering war.

Tom Jones: Where are you doing most of your reporting at this time?

Trey Yingst: Right now it's a mix between Tel Aviv and the south. This week we reported from Nir Oz and Netiv HaAsara along the Gaza border. In the weeks ahead, I plan to report from Jerusalem and the West Bank as well.

Jones: What's the most challenging part of the work right now? And, to that end, what is your access like at the moment?

Yingst: Access remains the most challenging part of this assignment. The Israeli military has reduced the size of the closed military zone, allowing us to get closer to the Gaza Strip in some areas, though we're still prevented from entering Gaza independently. To that end, we must rely on the brave Palestinian journalists who have risked their lives since the beginning of the war to tell the world what is happening inside the Gaza Strip.

Jones: Have you had any close calls? How dangerous is where you are and how are you managing to keep safe?

Yingst: We were the first international team to arrive in southern Israel on the morning of Oct. 7, so there was a lot of danger and uncertainty on that day, now commonly known as “Black Saturday.” In the early part of the war, we had many close calls amid incoming rocket and mortar fire. Fox has a security consultant with our crew 24/7, along with an armored vehicle, so the risk in southern Israel is certainly mitigated. I've entered Gaza four separate times on military embeds. These were by far the most dangerous parts of our coverage — especially one particular nighttime embed into the heart of Gaza City amid a firefight between the Israelis and Hamas.

Jones: What other media coverage are you paying attention to?

Yingst: I read and watch a variety of media outlets to stay updated on the war. Everything from Israeli news channels to Al Jazeera. I like my media diet to be like my sourcing diet. I talk to everyone: Israeli officials, Hamas officials, the Qataris and the Americans. Avoid the echo chambers and stay informed.

Jones: When you are out covering stories, can you tell who is who and which side they are on?

Yingst: In this conflict, it's much easier, with the exception of Oct. 7 when it was very confusing and chaotic. You'll notice in our reports, I make sure our audience hears from a variety of voices. From Israeli officials and Hamas officials. From Israeli civilians and Palestinian civilians. Despite not being able to enter Gaza independently, I use wire video from The Associated Press or Reuters to add a Palestinian perspective that can be more challenging to gather given the access restrictions. For example, yesterday our viewers heard from a man in central Gaza where civilians were digging through the rubble, looking for survivors after an Israeli strike. I also speak over the phone, on WhatsApp and on Instagram with Palestinian contacts in Gaza to stay updated on what's happening there. The Israeli sourcing is easier, simply due to our location.

Jones: What is the single biggest misconception people have about what's going on there?

Yingst: That all people on one side or the other are bad. The coverage of this conflict requires empathy and understanding for all people involved. Two things can be true at once. Israeli civilians were massacred on Oct. 7 in an attack that traumatized millions of people. At the same time, the Israeli response to that attack has killed thousands of innocent Palestinian civilians and created a generational trauma for the people of Gaza. It's our job as journalists to speak with Israelis and Palestinians, and to navigate the complexities of this coverage in a way that helps our audience to understand what is happening here.

Jones: Can you compare the situations between where you are now and when you were in Ukraine covering the war there?

Yingst: There are similarities and differences. The biggest similarity is the fact there are no winners in war. Death, destruction and suffering are objectively horrible. As a war correspondent, I know that we don't live in a utopia and so there will always be conflict. The biggest difference is the type of warfare. Israel is primarily using its air force to target Gaza. Inside the strip, Israeli forces and Hamas are fighting a more urban battle, with Hamas using guerilla tactics, like tunnels and ambushes. Ukraine, at this point in the war, is a conflict fought primarily by artillery units who support ground troops that are fighting a war of attrition in many places. Gaza and Ukraine are two totally different battlefields.

Jones: Finally, about covering war. How are you able to keep your spirits up and are you able to take breaks to get away from it?

Yingst: It's hard. I've been very open in talking about the mental health challenges of covering war. From the mass graves in Bucha, Ukraine, to southern Israel on the morning of Oct. 7 to the funerals of Palestinian children in Gaza during past rounds of conflict, I've seen a lot. A lot of things that are hard to forget and easy to have nightmares about. I try to stay focused on my mission to bring our audience objective, fair and accurate reporting; old school journalism, like the greats that came before me.

On a personal level, I try to stay healthy both mentally and physically. This involves daily exercise, cold plunges and a healthy lifestyle. The last generation of war correspondents medicated with drugs and alcohol. I'm encouraging this generation to medicate with cold exposure and meditation.

My thanks to Trey Yingst for the above Q&A. Now onto the rest of today’s newsletter …

A MESSAGE FROM POYNTER

New help for journalists facing uncooperative sources

Poynter’s Craig Newmark Center for Ethics and Leadership has just published a new report on how journalists can continue providing independent, thorough coverage even as more sources are refusing to engage, blocking access to public records and keeping reporters out of places where news is made.

Read: “Shut Out: Strategies for good journalism when sources dismiss the press”

We’re also hosting a LinkedIn Live at 4 p.m. today to talk more about this dynamic and hear your thoughts. Join us!

Bring it on

President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump will square off in at least two debates before the election. The big announcement came down Wednesday. They will debate June 27 on CNN and Sept. 10 on ABC.

The debates came together after some back-channel negotiations between the Biden and Trump camps after Biden turned down the traditional three fall debates organized by the bipartisan Commission on Presidential Debates.

The Washington Post’s Michael Scherer and Josh Dawsey wrote, “The public agreement by the Trump and Biden campaigns followed an informal private back-channel discussion in recent weeks, according to two people familiar with the interactions who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private talks. The two camps discussed debates that would not involve the commission. Both sides had grown increasingly frustrated with the commission, people with knowledge of the situation said, and Trump has been publicly and privately clamoring to debate Biden.”

Politico’s Eli Okun wrote, “The June debate is extraordinarily early for a presidential campaign; Biden and Trump won’t even be the formal nominees by then. The accelerated time frame could offer an opportunity for Biden, who’s losing in the polls and eager to put Trump front and center in voters’ minds ASAP. The CNN debate also won’t have the usual live audience, which could alter the dynamic.”

The CNN debate will take place in the network’s Atlanta studios and will be moderated by CNN anchors Jake Tapper and Dana Bash. ABC said that information on moderators and format would be made public at a later date, but did say it would make the debate available to additional broadcast and streaming networks in the U.S.

And what about Robert Kennedy Jr.? In its announcement, CNN said the debate is eligible to any candidate who, among other qualifications, has “at least 15% in four separate national polls of registered or likely voters that meet CNN’s standards for reporting.” Kennedy is right around that number in some polls, but a little below that, around 10%, in others. However, the Post reported that Biden intends only to debate Trump and that a Trump campaign official said they were told by a CNN producer that “RFK will not be on the stage.”

Trump said on his Truth Social that he also had accepted an invitation to debate Biden on Fox News in October, but the Biden camp has not agreed to that and didn’t seem interested. Biden campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon said in a statement, “President Biden made his terms clear for two one-on-one debates, and Donald Trump accepted those terms. No more games. No more chaos, no more debate about debates.”

The debates already have the feel of a WWE match with Biden and Trump taking turns trash-talking one another on social media.

Biden tweeted, “Trump says he’ll arrange his own transportation. I’ll bring my plane, too. I plan on keeping it for another four years.” Meanwhile, Trump called Biden the “worst debater” he ever faced and said that Biden “can’t put two sentences together.”

Interest in TikTok

Last month, President Biden signed a bill that ordered the Chinese company ByteDance to sell TikTok by early next year or else shut it down in the United States. Congress passed the bill over concerns China could spy on American users because of access to their data through the app. But the question quickly became who would want — and more importantly, who could afford — to buy TikTok?

Well, we might have an answer. Real estate billionaire Frank McCourt, former owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers, said he is putting together a group that hopes to buy TikTok.

McCourt, the founder of the tech and innovation initiative Project Liberty, told Semafor’s Ben Smith that he wants his group to buy and rebuild TikTok into “a new and better version of the internet where individuals are respected and they own and control their identity and their data.”

McCourt added, “TikTok presents the best and worst of the internet. It connects 170 million people and allows them to be creative and build things and enjoy things and do things. On the other hand, they don’t get to really share in the value that’s created, and their data is scraped and stolen and shipped to China.”

It isn’t clear how much it might cost to buy TikTok. The latest evaluations say the company could be worth around $100 billion. McCourt told Smith that the investment bank Guggenheim Securities would advise him and that he is seeking money from foundations, endowments and pension funds, as well as broad-based public support. In addition, and this is important, TikTok isn’t really officially for sale. ByteDance is fighting the U.S. law in court.

Smith adds, “If it loses in court and opts for a sale, the big question hanging over any deal is whether it would include TikTok’s algorithm, which powers its magic-feeling ability to serve users videos that suit their interests. Without it, TikTok might be worth far less to any buyer.”

Check out Smith’s story for more details.

NFL to Netflix

The NFL is giving Netflix a nice Christmas present. It was announced Wednesday that Netflix will stream two NFL games on Christmas Day: Kansas City at Pittsburgh and Baltimore at Houston. It’s part of a three-year deal that also includes Netflix streaming at least one game on Christmas in both 2025 and 2026.

Actually, I shouldn’t say the NFL is giving Netflix a present. The streaming company is paying millions of dollars for the rights to the Christmas Day games. Bloomberg’s Lucas Shaw reported that Netflix is paying less than $150 million per game.

This is yet another foray into sports for Netflix, which produces docuseries about various sports and will air the upcoming Mike Tyson-Jake Paul boxing match. It also will begin showing WWE’s signature show “Raw” starting in 2025. But this is the NFL, bigger than any sport there is in the U.S.

And it actually makes sense for the NFL, too, even if some fans grumble about having to have so many broadcast, cable and streaming platforms to watch all of its games. Earlier this year at the Super Bowl, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said, “Our fans are on these platforms. Our fans want to access them. The technology is extraordinary. You can do things on some of these platforms that you can’t do on the linear platform. For us, it’s part of the future.”

Sports Media Watch’s Jon Lewis wrote, “For the NFL, the Netflix deal creates another powerful media partner. The league is now in business with three of the four ‘FANG’ tech companies — Amazon, Netflix and Google — to say nothing of its traditional media partners such as Disney and Comcast. The league that is by far the most committed to traditional broadcast television has also been the most aggressive in the streaming space, and will now have games that are streamed exclusively via four separate platforms in 2024 — ESPN+, Peacock, Amazon and Netflix.”

It is true that you need a scorecard to keep track of where all the NFL games are this season. Fortunately, The Wall Street Journal’s Joe Flint has provided one:

• 101 games on Fox
• 101 games on CBS
• 23 games on Disney (ABC, ESPN, ESPN+)
• 22 games on NBC, including Peacock
• 16 games on Amazon
• 7 games on NFL Network
• 2 games on Netflix

Media tidbits

• While we’re talking about the NFL, HBO’s “Hard Knocks,” the limited series that goes behind the scenes of an NFL team during training camp, has chosen a team for this season: the New York Giants. Although this version will be a little different. It’ll focus on the Giants’ offseason, thus the name: “Hard Knocks — Offseason with the New York Giants.” The weekly five-part series debuts July 2 with a new episode coming out every Tuesday through July 30. The joke already is that they should change the name of the show to “Hard Watch” because the Giants seem boring. Maybe they’ll surprise us.
• Staying with sports, ESPN announced Wednesday that the U.S. Open men’s tennis final will be shown on ABC on Sunday, Sept. 8. That’s notable because the men’s final hasn’t been on broadcast TV since ESPN took over the rights from CBS in 2015. The women’s final will stay on ESPN because of ABC’s contractual obligations with college football.
• And one more sports item. No surprise here, but Caitlin Clark’s WNBA regular-season debut Tuesday night was the most-watched WNBA game ever on an ESPN platform. Clark’s Indiana Fever and the Connecticut Sun averaged 2.1 million viewers across ESPN2, ESPN+ and Disney+. The game peaked with 2.3 million viewers. The previous WNBA viewership record for ESPN was the 2004 debut of Diana Taurasi, which drew an average of 1.43 million viewers. Tuesday’s game was the most-watched WNBA game since Memorial Day in 2001 when 2.45 million viewers watched a game between Los Angeles and Houston on NBC. Clark had a so-so debut, scoring a team-high 20 points, but also committing 10 turnovers in Indiana’s 92-71 loss.
• The New York Times’ Jim Rutenberg and Michael M. Grynbaum with “How MSNBC’s Leftward Tilt Delivers Ratings, and Complications.”
• The Associated Press’ David Bauder with “Voice-cloning technology bringing a key Supreme Court moment to ‘life.’”

Hot type

• For The Texas Tribune and ProPublica, Jeremy Schwartz with “A GOP Texas school board member campaigned against schools indoctrinating kids. Then she read the curriculum.”
• Superb reporting, design and illustrations in this one. The Washington Post’s Arelis R. Hernández and Frank Hulley-Jones with illustrations by Raúl Urias and photography by Desiree Rios in “After a borderland shootout, a 100-year-old battle for the truth.”

More resources for journalists

• Reporting on the Rise of AI: A RAND-Poynter Masterclass
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Have feedback or a tip? Email Poynter senior media writer Tom Jones at [email protected].