Former CNN war correspondent mocks wounded Fox reporter

Former CNN war correspondent Charles Jaco mocked the injuries sustained by Fox News correspondent Benjamin Hall in the Ukraine war, managing in one phrase to both trivialize the fact of Hall’s injuries and besmirch the Fox organization by sarcastically questioning whether Hall’s injuries were ‘A case of friendly fire?’

According to the article, Former CNN correspondent Charles Jaco used Hall’s injuries as an opportunity to score political points and push the liberal narrative that Fox News is a mouthpiece for the Kremlin. Fox News announced Monday that correspondent Benjamin Hall was hospitalized after being injured “outside of Kyiv in Ukraine.”

News of Hall’s injury came one day after American journalist Brent Renaud — who formally worked for the New York Times, HBO, and NBC, among other outlets — was killed when Russian forces reportedly opened fire on a car he was traveling in with another journalist. Jaco — who served as a war correspondent for CNN during the Gulf War — bizarrely used news of Hall’s hospitalization to mock his employer. However, was saying, “RIP, brother” regarding the death of Renaud.

Jaco’s comment generated outrage. Standing on principle the way someone stands on melting thin ice, Jaco deleted his tweet and apologized for being an “asshole” — but affirmed his contempt for Fox News. “My tweet about a Fox News journo was idiotic & stupid. I apologize. I wrote ‘A Fox News journo was injured near Kyiv. If it was the Russians, was it friendly fire?’ While Fox is neo-fascist propaganda, that’s the hosts, not reporters. I was an asshole,” Jaco said.

The article continues: “Critics of Fox News have repeatedly accused the network of pushing pro-Kremlin propaganda, but have provided little to no evidence to substantiate their claims. While it is true that Russian state media is using Fox News host Tucker Carlson in its propaganda, the substance of Carlson’s rhetoric is not pro-Russia, but anti-American interventionism.”

In the category of “for whatever it’s worth,” Iryna Venediktova, prosecutor general of Ukraine, said Monday that Hall being injured demonstrates yet again how Russian military forces are targeting civilians, CNN reported. Under international law, journalists are protected in war zones and retain all rights of civilians. “Journalists are protected only as long as they do not take a direct part in the hostilities. News media, even when used for propaganda purposes, enjoy immunity from attacks, except when they are used for military purposes or to incite war crimes, genocide or acts of violence,” explains the International Committee of the Red Cross.