Fox News reporter in Ukraine rejects Greg Gutfeld's claim that media is pushing images for emotional response

Stephen Proctor

Reporting from Kyiv, Ukraine, Fox News correspondent Benjamin Hall on Tuesday took issue with something Greg Gutfeld said earlier on The Five. Gutfeld accused the media of trying to push an emotional response to the unprompted Russian invasion of Ukraine after the New York Times on Monday ran a photo of a mother and her two children who had been killed by Russian shelling.

“I can feel the galvanizing force of these stories that kind of have sped up and are accumulating to create a narrative, and they only go in one direction. And I understand why they only go in one direction, because it’s the invaded who experience the atrocity, right? And that’s all we’re going to see,” Gutfeld said. “However, I can’t help but feel that this is a lot like other stories that we've gone through in the digital age in which an image is taken and then played over and over and over again to create some kind of emotional response out of you, because that makes a profit for news companies, right?”

After a commercial break, they went to Hall for an update on Ukraine, but he instead responded to Gutfeld’s take.

“Speaking as someone on the ground, I want to say that this is not the media trying to drum up some emotional response. This is absolutely what’s happening,” Hall said. “From the cities fo Kharkiv to Mariupol … they are being absolutely flattened. And from all corners of the country, people are fleeing to safety.”

More than 2 million people have already fled Ukraine, mostly women and children. Those left behind are in constant danger and some no longer have the option to leave as conditions are worsening in parts of the country and aid is unable to make it where it’s needed most.

“In the city of Mariupol, people are drinking water from puddles because the Russian forces haven’t allowed them to get out. When they have tried to get out, they're shelled,” Hall said. “The red cross buses have been unable to get in. It is an absolute catastrophe and the people caught in the middle are the ones who are really suffering.”

Hall then showed an interview he had done with a tearful young woman who had just boarded a train to leave the country.

“We’re just saving our lives, and that’s it,” the woman said. “That’s all we can do here.” “What have you left behind?” Hall asked. “Our families. Everything. Everything,” the woman answered. “We have two bags and that’s it.”

But rather than heed the words of someone who is witnessing the war firsthand, Gutfeld saw Hall's piece as a personal attack.

“What do you think?” Gutfeld asked. “Should I address Benjamin Hall’s cheap attack on me, or should I be a good coworker and let it slide?”

The Five airs weeknights at 5 p.m. on Fox News Channel.

Watch this Ukrainian woman who struggles to get her Russian parents to believe that civilians are under attack:

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