eter Arnett, the longtime foreign correspondent who on Sunday criticized the allied war plan on Iraqi television, was dropped by NBC News yesterday in a move that was played out vividly on live television.Posted on 04/01/2003 3:57:47 PM PST by Timesink
THE NBC CORRESPONDENT
eter Arnett, the longtime foreign correspondent who on Sunday criticized the allied war plan on Iraqi television, was dropped by NBC News yesterday in a move that was played out vividly on live television.
 Associated Press Peter Arnett giving the interview on Iraqi television that provoked NBC executives to let him go and announce it on the "Today" show. |
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NBC executives, who had earlier defended his appearance on Iraqi state television, said Mr. Arnett, 68, had compromised his objectivity when he told an Iraqi interviewer that the coalition battle plan had failed.
Mr. Arnett's departure was announced on the "Today" show. Appearing uncomfortable, Matt Lauer, a co-host, read haltingly from a network statement.
"Peter Arnett will no longer be reporting for NBC News and MSNBC," Mr. Lauer read.
The statement also said, "It was wrong for Mr. Arnett to grant an interview to state-controlled Iraqi TV."
Then Mr. Arnett appeared on the program by satellite and answered questions from Mr. Lauer. "I want to apologize to the American people for clearly making a misjudgment," Mr. Arnett said.
NBC announced its decision to cut ties with Mr. Arnett only 14 hours after it publicly defended him, describing his comments as harmless news analysis.
But network executives said yesterday that after further deliberation, the NBC News president, Neal Shapiro, decided that Mr. Arnett should be dropped. "National Geographic Explorer," for which Mr. Arnett was also reporting, came to the same conclusion and dropped him.
Mr. Arnett has been hired by The Daily Mirror, a British tabloid, with his first column appearing today.
He complained: "The right-wing media and politicians are looking for any opportunity to be critical of the reporters who are here," Mr. Arnett writes in the column called "This War Is Not Working." "I made the misjudgment which gave them the opportunity to do so."
He also wrote, "I'll never stop reporting on the truth of this war."
The end of his relationship with NBC also brought an end to a developing comeback story that the television industry was watching closely.
Mr. Arnett, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting in Vietnam for The Associated Press, was the face of the 1991 Persian Gulf war. As a reporter for CNN he was the only major television correspondent allowed to remain in Baghdad after the first week of that war. The White House criticized him as helping the Iraqis spread propaganda, but competitors grudgingly credited him with getting a side of the story they could not.
But in 1999 CNN did not renew its contract with Mr. Arnett after it retracted a report he delivered raising accusations that United States forces used nerve gas against defectors in Laos during the Vietnam War. Mr. Arnett said that he was simply reading a script that was handed him and did not hide his bitterness over CNN's decision.
After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Mr. Arnett, described as an adrenaline addict by those who know him, asked the major networks to send him to cover the fighting in Afghanistan. They declined, citing the retracted CNN report. He described himself as "damaged goods."
But BNN, an independent production company, hired Mr. Arnett to cover the Afghanistan campaign. "National Geographic Explorer," which is shown on MSNBC, sent him to Baghdad late last year. With war looming ever closer, MSNBC and NBC News struck an agreement in February with National Geographic to use him as a freelance reporter.
That relationship began at arm's length. Mr. Arnett did not become a regular presence on NBC News and MSNBC until war became a certainty. His importance rose after NBC, along with CBS and ABC, ordered their staff correspondents out of Baghdad. He swore to stay no matter the danger, prompting some colleagues to worry that he was risking his life to redeem his reputation.
Redemption seemed at hand on March 21, when the bombing of Baghdad grew particularly intense. Mr. Arnett and Richard Engel, a freelance journalist for ABC News, were the only correspondents reporting for American networks. From his hotel room, Mr. Arnett told Tom Brokaw, the NBC News anchor, "This is shock and awe, Tom. Shock and awe indeed."
People in the industry speculated that NBC would hire Mr. Arnett as a full-time correspondent. "I never envisioned myself being sort of in action again like this," he said during a conference call with reporters last week.
Possibly using his connections with Baghdad officials, Mr. Arnett seemed to be gaining a freedom of movement in Iraq that others did not have. Some networks grumbled that the Iraqis were allowing only him to use his portable satellite camera from his hotel room, restricting every other network's cameras to the roof of the Ministry of Information. It seemed as if he was in the best position of the correspondents there to get an interview with Saddam Hussein, assuming he was still alive.
His interview on Iraqi TV took NBC by surprise.
"The first war plan has failed because of Iraqi resistance," he told his interviewer. He also said that reports about civilian casualties in Baghdad had served to "help those who oppose the war" in the United States.
Several people at NBC News said that top news executives initially decided to support Mr. Arnett, as they would any staff reporter. As criticism increased, especially on the Fox News Channel, NBC released a statement praising Mr. Arnett for risking his life. It said that Iraqi producers approached him after an Iraqi military briefing and asked for an interview. He did so, the statement said, out of professional courtesy.
"I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt," Mr. Shapiro said.
But after further inspecting the interview, NBC executives said, Mr. Shapiro and others decided that Mr. Arnett had gone too far in feeding Iraqi officials what amounted to useful sound bites. On one hand, they said, Mr. Arnett was arguably only repeating an analysis made by several other network commentators. Erik Sorenson, MSNBC president, told Reuters he thought that Mr. Arnett's participation with Iraqi television was "arguably unpatriotic."
An NBC official said he took a tape of the interview home with him and carefully scanned it to find some defense of Mr. Arnett's commentary. He said he believed that Mr. Arnett's comments that reports about civilian casualties were useful to war protesters seemed to cross a line.
Another NBC executive said that Mr. Shapiro had hoped that the Iraqis pressured Mr. Arnett in the interview and that he would say, "There was a guy behind this orange curtain with an AK-47."
But during a phone call, Mr. Arnett told Mr. Shapiro that he felt no such pressure, a spokeswoman said.
NBC's decision prompted some debate within journalism circles.
"It's regrettable that a news organization feels compelled to fire a journalist for essentially doing journalism," said Bill Kovach, chairman of the Committee of Concerned Journalists.
But many others said they supported NBC. "I would have done the same," said Alex S. Jones, director of the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard. "It would have been to me a very fundamental judgment that you would not go on their state-controlled television."
Never underestimate the power of little Internet site like Free Republic to be the deciding factor is fighting the enemies of America and the enemies of civilization like Arnett.
EAGLES UP!!! One war criminal down, an entire political party of democrat war criminals to go!
Just curious about the permutations of this situation.
How did he know what the "first" war plan was? Was he in on the meetings in the White House?
What a jerk!
Treason.
"A breach of allegiance to one's government, usually committed through levying war against such government or by giving aid or comfort to the enemy. The offense of attempting by overt acts to overthrow the government of the state to which the offender owes allegiance; or of betraying the state into the hands of a foreign power. Treason consists of two elements: adherence to the enemy, and rendering him aid and comfort. Cramer v. U. S., U.S.N.Y., 325 U.S. l, 65 S.Ct. 918, 9327 89 L.Ed. 1441. See 18 U.S.C.A. § 2381. A person can be convicted of treason only on the testimony of two witnesses, or confession in open court. Art. III, Sec. 3, U.S. Constitution"
What burns me even more is that he did it on STATE-RUN Iraqi TV. Can you imagine any American journalist in WWII paying a visit to a German radio station, for any purpose other than because Allied forces had just taken it over? Lord Haw-Haw was HANGED for that sort of thing. By the British of all people!
A legitimate reporter takes interviews and reports objectively. Since when do they become foreign celebrities and grant interviews to enemy controlled propaganda machines?
As a side note, we heard his voice in English, what do you suppose the Iraqi people heard via government translation?
His passport should be yanked, word should be spread throughout Iraq that he advocated the attacks on the Kurds and he should be airdropped in northern Iraq near the Kurdish territory..........
Well, I've seen plenty of foreign reporters show up as commentators on American TV. Part of this is the whole problem of reporters of every persuasion becoming pundits, talking to each other endlessly. But that's a function of the news outlets trying to "make good TV" and fill a 24-hour news cycle. I'm not saying what Arnett did was right, I'm saying it's only a minor step from, say, him doing it in a British TV studio, a Turkish TV studio, or a Baghdad TV studio. Because if you want to fire every reporter who appears on foreign TV, you'd soon run out of reporters on TV. And they get CNN in Baghdad.
No, SHOOT those who appear on Al Jazeerah (sp?)........
They are the enemy are they not?
Aid and comfort is more powerful if the person is on-site.
Arnett says the Ministry of Info has been nothing but polite with him. Obviously, he is cultivating personal relationships over there. We can assume he has the same anti-American attitude behind the camera as in front of it. This would serve to comfort not only the higher officials he is dealing with on a personal level, but the underlings who are watching and see him on local TV. This tends to strengthen their whole machine against the enemy (us).
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