Fox News has been unrelentingly pro-Russia since the start of Putin's invasion of Ukraine. Now the entertainment news outlet is struggling with the reality that one of their own, photographer Pierre Zakrzewski, a camera operator, was killed during the conflict.
Zakrzewski and a British correspondent for Fox News, Benjamin Hall, were reporting in Horenka outside of Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, on Monday when their vehicle was struck by incoming fire. Hall, 39, was seriously injured in the attack and remains hospitalized in Ukraine.
Tuesday, Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott made the announcement to employees about Zakrzewski’s death.
Scott wrote in her memo that Zakrzewski was a “war zone photographer who covered nearly every international story for Fox News from Iraq to Afghanistan to Syria” and his “passion and talent as a journalist were unmatched.”
According to Scott, Zakrzewski, 55, had been working in Ukraine. She wrote that he was “profoundly committed to telling the story and his bravery, professionalism, and work ethic were renowned among journalists at every media outlet.” She says he was “wildly popular” and “respected.”
“Last year he played a key role in getting our Afghan freelance associates and their families out of the country after the U.S. withdrawal,” Scott added. “In December at our annual employee Spotlight Awards, Pierre was given the ‘Unsung Hero’ award in recognition of his invaluable work.”
Indeed it is a tragic loss. But here’s the dilemma: Why is Fox continuing to put their journalists in harm’s way?
As Daily Kos staff writer Hunter covered recently, the Kremlin is instructing Russian media to broadcast clips of Fox’s own Tucker Carlson.
Mother Jones says it has a copy of a Russian government document sent to the nation's media outlets earlier this month, one sent on to the magazine by "a contributor to a national Russian media outlet who asked not to be identified."
The part of the memo that stands out, however, is the Putin government's urging that state-friendly media feature broadcast clips from Fox News talking head Carlson "as much as possible." As quoted by Mother Jones:
"It is essential to use as much as possible fragments of broadcasts of the popular Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who sharply criticizes the actions of the United States [and] NATO, their negative role in unleashing the conflict in Ukraine, [and] the defiantly provocative behavior from the leadership of the Western countries and NATO towards the Russian Federation and towards President Putin, personally."
Hunter adds that “Carlson's Russia support has been more expressly premised on his show's own nationalist advocacy.
“Tucker has been the Fox Host most willing to sneer at the premise of democracy as means of governance, and the host most willing to boost far-right nationalist movements dedicated to doing away with it.”
As someone who worked at Fox News, I can honestly tell you that it is normal to “foxify” the news, meaning a reporter or producer takes the facts and rubs them like you would in order to find a genie in a bottle, only in this case the genie is the right-wing agenda that supports the GOP’s position and props up Trump, or the “Big Lie,” or in Carlson’s case, Russia.
Daily Kos staff writer Joan McCarter wrote about the night Carlson “explained” why he seems to be siding with Putin by blaming President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. Huh?
“We’ve been taken by surprise by the whole thing,” Carlson said about Putin’s vicious attack on Ukraine. “We are not the only ones who were, but we are willing to admit it.”
“We assumed that if things were dire, serious people would be involved in fixing them. We looked up and we saw Kamala Harris involved, and that reassured us. Harris had just come back from Europe where she had been conducting ‘diplomacy’ with our allies, and that appeared to be proof this could not really be a big deal.” So far, so not Tucker Carlson, almost reasonable. Almost respectful. Don’t be fooled. That was just his wind-up.
“If the situation in Ukraine had been legitimately serious—if the future of Europe and the world hung in the balance, as now so obviously it does—of course, the Biden Administration would not have sent Kamala Harris to fix it, because that’s not her job.” Why isn’t that her job, Tucker? Because of course a woman of color couldn’t be handling serious issues, not in Tucker’s world. Her job, he said, “is to trot down to the Blue Room to greet delegations of TikTok influencers.”