Handing live information on battlefield conditions strips civilian protections. It’s the same as if you were on the phone with Netanyahu telling him where troops are located. It’s active intelligence that’s highly useful in war. When you become a participant in intelligence gathering on a battlefield, you’re just as much a target as any intelligence officer, belligerent, whatever. War necessity generally wins.

No it doesn't the very first two paragraphs of section 79 state that a journalist is,

1. Journalists engaged in dangerous professional missions in areas of armed conflict shall be considered as civilians within the meaning of Article 50, paragraph 1.

2. They shall be protected as such under the Conventions and this Protocol, provided that they take no action adversely affecting their status as civilians, and without prejudice to the right of war correspondents accredited to the armed forces to the status provided for in Article 4 A (4) of the Third Convention.

Which clearly denotes them as civilians.

The definition of what a professional mission is included in the discussion on that section which I quoted above and do so again with an expansion to include the sections above and below that,

3263 What is meant by "dangerous professional missions in areas of armed conflict"? The meaning of the words is clear: any professional activity exercised in an area affected by hostilities is dangerous by its very nature and is thus covered by the rule. It is not necessary to give a precise geographical delimitation of such "areas of armed conflict" from either a legal or a practical point of view. In fact, journalists enjoy the rights to which they are entitled as civilians in all circumstances.

3264 The concept of a "professional mission" covers all activities which normally form part of the journalist's profession in a broad sense: being on the spot, doing interviews, taking notes, taking photographs or films, sound recording etc. and transmitting them to his newspaper or agency. The military or civil authorities may subject such activities to controls in order to ensure that they comply with the rules they have laid down.

3265 To sum up, a journalist on a dangerous professional mission is a civilian and enjoys the protection granted civilians by the relevant provisions of international humanitarian law.

So the job of a journalist includes being in an area of danger observing and recording things. It's contradictory to say that the very action of doing so renders them not a civilian doing a legitimate job and hence lacking protection when the convention goes to such lengths to state that journalists are a category and explicitly entitled to those protections.

This is also clarified in other documents on international humanitarian law.

Importantly, the ordinary professional work of the media does not constitute direct participation in hostilities. This means that media professionals cannot be directly and deliberately attacked by parties to an armed conflict simply for carrying out their professional tasks.

The work of the media from conflict zones often results in the publication of information and news about the conflict, including death tolls resulting from particular attacks, conditions of victims of war, and, potentially, information that can identify the location of particular parties to the conflict. It is possible that, in some circumstances, this published information might be helpful to parties’ military operations and may provide military advantage to one side. If reporting on particular elements of a conflict is likely to result in harm of a military nature or have an impact on the military operations or capacity of a party then it may meet the ‘threshold of harm’ requirement for direct participation in hostilities. However, most published reports from a conflict are not likely to cause any military harm.

In addition, according to the cumulative criteria set out above, reporting on a conflict is unlikely to meet the requirements of ‘direct causation’ and ‘belligerent nexus’. Even if parties use the information published by a media professional to assist them in their military operations, the collection and reporting of this information is, at best, indirectly assisting a party and would not, therefore, meet the ‘direct causation’ requirement. Similarly, the ordinary professional activities of the media – designed to collect news and information about a conflict and communicate this to the public – are not usually designed to support one party to the detriment of another.213 Merely reporting on a conflict is not sufficiently closely related to hostilities to fulfil the ‘belligerent nexus’ requirement for direct participation.

It is noted above that media professionals in conflict zones are often well placed to provide assistance to parties to a conflict by gathering and passing on tactical information about one party to another. This conduct is likely to cause military harm and may also be regarded as closely connected to hostilities.224 In contrast to the mere reporting on a conflict, the deliberate passing on of specific tactical information, such as the location of military targets, enemy forces, or other operational information relevant to military operations, may be considered an “integral part of a concrete and co-ordinated tactical operation” that directly causes harm.225 Media professionals who engage in the transmission or communication of tactical information about an adversary to a party to the conflict, where such information is an integral part of a military operation likely to cause harm, may be considered as directly participating in hostilities. This may expose those media professionals to lawful and deliberate attack by parties to a conflict.

There is a clear distinction between general reporting which may include some information which maybe useful to the opposition and deliberate specific transmission of information to the benefit of one side. The former does not meet the 'Direct Causation' required to consider a journalist to be actively engaging in hostilities.

You’re spouting nonsense where any military could dress up their best scouts in “Press” outfits, gather front information, then claim protection…not how any of it works.

The convention covers that case. A military is entitled to detain suspicious individuals and ascertain their identity. If it can be shown after that they're a member of the opposing military and captured forward of that sides front line then they're a POW, and if on the back side that line then a spy. Neither of these cases entitle a military to open fire on anyone without a weapon in the area of combat.

Those newspaper office requirements are missing if you’re streaming live information that is useful for combatants. It doesn’t even have to be purposefully helping the enemy…it’s allowing a military advantage that nobody is going to allow.

As noted above there isn't a distinction given to live or after the fact reporting, journalists are allowed to do both. It can be useful to combatants but it's usefulness in and of itself doesn't make the act of providing it grounds for attacking a journalist. It has to be substantial specific tactical information given directly to a party in the conflict.

You’re also going to be a target at range even in a press outfit while embedded. The outfit might help someone if whatever unit is captured, but only as to which jail they go to. At best there is a protection against active targeting, purposefully aiming for them, not against being shot. Artillery shoots from miles now, snipers shoot from barely visible ranges. Neither are going to be able to purposefully see press markings and target them at the ranges they’re engaging at.

The conventions make note of that, there is allowance for some collateral damage while targeting specific military objectives, including specifically when a journalist is embedded. It is not an invitation to ignore all distinction between civilians and combatants.

War footage is great, but it all comes at risk, nobody knows if whatever is a camera, nobody knows where live front footage would be going…if they could even differentiate a camera from a weapon.

The convention address that by requiring parties to air on the side of caution. Claiming you can't tell the difference between a camera and a weapon isn't justification to ignore the protections civilians are entitled to. It's a reason to proceed with caution and take steps to determine if it is a weapon. And again reporting in and of itself is not grounds to target civilians. 'I don't know where it's going' is not a valid reason to consider reporting a hostile action.