Fox News anchor Bill Hemmer delivered a heartfelt on-air tribute on Wednesday morning to the late Fox News photojournalist Pierre Zakrzewski after having traveled to Ireland earlier in the week to attend his wake and funeral.
Zakrzewski, 55, was killed earlier this month when the vehicle he was traveling in was struck by incoming fire near Kyiv. 24-year-old Oleksandra “Sasha” Kuvshynova was a Ukrainian journalist freelancing for Fox News who was also killed in the attack. Fox News State Department correspondent Benjamin Hall was also part of the traveling team and suffered serious injuries. He survived, thankfully, and is being treated at a medical facility in Texas.
“We had a bit of news that hits close to home here at Fox and, in the past two days, a group from New York traveled to Dublin, Ireland for the wake and then the funeral of our colleague Pierre Zakrzewski,” said Hemmer.
The anchor then pointed out an on-screen image from the funeral of Zakrzewski’s casket.
“A beautiful ceremony, Dana [Perino]. It was as I told you by way of text last night, it was beautiful and it was profound all 48 hours of the experience. And there is Pierre in the final days in Kyiv with some other of our producers and we remember Sasha as well also taken out in Ukraine and killed also. I feel very mellow today and the reason I feel that way is because I thought a lot about how great that guy is and I’ve known him for a long time,” said Hemmer.
“Wouldn’t say we were friends but we were colleagues and we worked together in Iraq several times and—once you meet his family, you understand the goodness of those people in a way that I can’t describe. They were so gracious to us even in their grief.”
Hemmer added that Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott and president Jay Wallace also attended the funeral in Ireland.
Here’s a message from Fox News foreign correspondent Trey Yingst, followed by the full clip of Hemmer:
Said goodbye to Pierre yesterday in Dublin. We’ll keep telling stories in his honor. Rest easy, my friend. pic.twitter.com/rtbi8kLDb1
— Trey Yingst (@TreyYingst) March 30, 2022