Wayne: Welcome to "Wayne's World"! This week we have Mr. Peter Arnett live from Baghdad! Hey Peter!
Peter: Hello Wayne.
So tell me Peter, assphinctersayswhat?
Peter: What?
Posted on 04/07/2003 7:07:03 AM PDT by KeyBored
Peter Arnett Reporting for Taiwan TV
Apr 7, 7:48 AM (ET)
TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) - Fired NBC correspondent Peter Arnett began reporting from Iraq on Monday as a special Baghdad correspondent for Taiwan's TVBS cable news.
Arnett appeared live for about 30 minutes on TVBS's evening newscast, taking questions about the war from Taiwanese anchors who spoke in English. Arnett's answers were simultaneously translated into Mandarin.
NBC TV fired Arnett on March 31 after he gave an unauthorized interview with state-run Iraqi TV. During the interview, he said the U.S.-led war effort had initially failed because of Iraq's resistance.
NBC was angered because Arnett gave the interview without permission and presented opinion as fact.
A TVBS anchor based in Taipei asked Arnett, who appeared on air with the title "special Baghdad correspondent," to give his account of the controversy. Arnett didn't mention his comments about the progress of the war.
"The problem was that I made the mistake of giving a short interview to Iraqi television. I thought that it was a professional courtesy," said Arnett, standing near the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad.
"I said they were treating reporters OK. The government was being unexpectedly defiant and that there was some concern about civilian casualties," he said.
"I thought it was an interesting interview but there was a bad reaction in the United States," he told the 24-hour station. "I apologized and here we are. I'm talking to you today."
Before Arnett began reporting for TVBS, the station had no correspondents in Baghdad.
Since he was fired by NBC, Arnett has also been reporting for pan-Arab satellite channel Al-Arabiya, based in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. He has also been hired by the private Belgian TV network VTM, the state-run Greek television channel NET, and The Daily Mirror of London, a tabloid vehemently opposed to the war.
Arnett covered the 1991 Gulf War for CNN, but he later left the network after being reprimanded for a retracted 1998 report that accused U.S. forces of using sarin nerve gas in Laos in 1970.
Arnett won a Pulitzer Prize reporting in Vietnam for The Associated Press.
Looks like anti-Americanism, for whatever else it is, sure pays well. One will never suffer a shortage of job offers.
A spokesperson for McDonalds Corporation when contacted about this news said "That location has been closed for several years. We are currently attempting to evict some balding fellow that says he is broadcasing news alerts from the property. He apparently has a camera setup that he talks to. And as best we can tell is he living in a van down by the river."
Is this an Onion story? Too funny!
That is not what he said, nor was giving his personal opinion the cause of his firing.
What he did was a lot more dammaging to the news media in general. He admitted that his reporting and how he reported was the cause of public opinion rising against the war in the U.S.. Having a reporter proving what the conservatives have said all along about the liberal media was his undoing, not to mention that this statement made him a Hanoi Jane in the eyes of most Americans.
Wayne: Welcome to "Wayne's World"! This week we have Mr. Peter Arnett live from Baghdad! Hey Peter!
Peter: Hello Wayne.
So tell me Peter, assphinctersayswhat?
Peter: What?
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