On February 24, as Russian troops flooded into Ukraine, unleashing the largest attack on a European state since World War II, Fox News scored its highest ratings in a year, drawing more viewers than CNN and MSNBC combined. Anchoring the network’s coverage on the ground from Kyiv: foreign correspondent Trey Yingst. “Make no mistake,” he said over the wail of air raid sirens, “this is a full-scale Russian invasion into Ukraine happening right now.”

The 29-year-old’s flak vest and helmet have seen more action than most reporters’ his age. Yingst, who joined Fox News in 2018 after covering the Trump administration for 16 months for One America News Network, has reported amid rocket fire in Gaza and from under a gas mask in Beirut.

Even before he graduated with a degree in broadcast journalism from AU, Yingst was working in the field, breaking stories in Syria, Uganda, and Ukraine with News2Share, the online media outlet he founded in 2013 with fellow Eagle Ford Fischer, SOC/BA ’16.

The Pennsylvania native made headlines of his own in 2014 when, as a junior, he was arrested for unlawful assembly while filing a report from Ferguson during a demonstration in the wake of the police shooting of Michael Brown. News of a journalist in cuffs (his arrest was later expunged with help from the ACLU) shone a light on the First Amendment and the critical importance of a free press—whether in Missouri or Mariupol.

It’s a mission Yingst is proud to champion at the nation’s number one cable news network. “We have millions of people watching our reports every day. They need to be accurate; they need to be objective; they need to be representative of the story and the people involved,” he says. “It’s something I wake up looking forward to doing because it gives me purpose. I love this job.”