Peter Arnett is fired by NBC, MSNBC, and the National Geographic!

[Gabbal]

The famous Peter Arnett who became famous for being the only Western journalist to have stayed behind in Baghdad was today sacked.

 

 

 

“IT WAS wrong for Mr. Arnett to grant an

interview to state controlled Iraqi TV — especially at a time of war — and it was wrong for him to discuss his personal observations and opinions in that interview,” NBC News President Neal Shapiro said in a statement. “Therefore, Peter Arnett will no longer be reporting for NBC News and MSNBC.”

National Geographic, for whom Arnett first traveled to Baghdad, said it too had “terminated the service of Peter Arnett.”

“The Society did not authorize or have any prior knowledge of Arnett’s television interview with Iraqi television,” it said in a statement, “and had we been consulted, would not have allowed it. His decision to grant an interview and express his personal views on state controlled Iraqi television, especially during a time of war, was a serious error in judgment and wrong.”

Arnett, who won a Pulitzer Prize reporting in Vietnam for The Associated Press, appeared on NBC’s “Today” show Monday to apologize for his statements. (MSNBC.com is an NBC News-Microsoft joint venture.)

 

INTERVIEW CONTENT

In the Iraqi TV interview, Arnett said his Iraqi friends had told him that there was a growing sense of nationalism and resistance to what the United States and Britain were doing.

He said the United States was reappraising the battlefield and delaying the war, maybe for a week, “and rewriting the war plan. The first war plan has failed because of Iraqi resistance. Now they are trying to write another war plan.”

“Clearly, the American war plans misjudged the determination of the Iraqi forces,” Arnett said during the interview, which was broadcast by Iraq’s satellite television station and monitored by The AP in Egypt.

Arnett said it was clear that there was growing opposition to the war within the United States and a growing challenge to President Bush.

“Our reports about civilian casualties here, about the resistance of the Iraqi forces, are going back to the United States,” he said. “It helps those who oppose the war when you challenge the policy to develop their arguments.”

The interview was broadcast in English and translated by a green military uniform-wearing Iraqi anchor. NBC said Arnett gave the interview when asked shortly after he attended an Iraqi government briefing.

The interview quickly made Arnett a target of the war’s supporters.

Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., said on Fox News Channel that she found the interview “nauseating” and accused Arnett of “kowtowing to what clearly is the enemy in this way.”

NBC initially backed Arnett’s interview. “His impromptu interview with Iraqi TV was done as a professional courtesy and was similar to other interviews he has done with media outlets from around the world,” NBC News spokeswoman Allison Gollust said. “His remarks were analytical in nature and were not intended to be anything more. His outstanding reporting on the war speaks for itself.”

 

BACKGROUND SINCE 1991

Arnett garnered much of his prominence from covering the 1991 Gulf War for CNN. But even then the first Bush administration was unhappy with his reporting, suggesting that he had become a conveyor of propaganda.

At one point, he was denounced for his reporting about an allied bombing of a baby milk factory in Baghdad that the military said was a biological weapons plant. The U.S. military responded vigorously to the suggestion it had targeted a civilian facility, but Arnett stood by his reporting that the plant’s sole purpose was to make baby formula.

Arnett was also the on-air reporter of a 1998 CNN report that accused U.S. forces of using sarin gas on a Laotian village in 1970 to kill U.S. defectors. Two CNN employees were sacked, and Arnett was reprimanded over the report, which the station later retracted. Arnett later left the network.

He went to Iraq this year not as an NBC News reporter but as an employee of “National Geographic Explorer.” When other NBC reporters left Baghdad for safety reasons, the network began airing his reports.

[Somaliland-Patriot]

Assalaamu Alaikum,

 

I was just reading this same article, and couldn't help wonder what is freedom of speech? Are journalists there to spin the news to the U.S. administrations liking, or are they suppose to be objective? In any case, in times of war, the media too goes to war, and that is a sad reality. By the way, he's not the only western journalist still left in Baghdad.

 

This war has brought nothing but misery for Muslims around the world, especially for the Iraqi people. Lets keep them and all other Muslims in our thoughts.

[N.O.R.F]

i was just watching this guy on ANN, has alot to say, proof yet again that freedom of speach is a nothing!

[Gabbal]

I ment to say he was the only Western journalist to stay behind in Iraq in the first Gulf War

[Somaliland-Patriot]

Assalaamu Alaikum,

 

Peter was not the only Western journalist in Iraq in the first Gulf War either. However, he was among the very few Western journalists that remained in Baghdad.

 

By the way, if I'm not mistaken a British Newspaper has hired him; the name, which I can vaguely recall, I believe is the Daily Mirror.

 

 

May Allah have mercy on our souls.

[Gabbal]

Somaliland Patriot, aboow, he was the only Western journalist to remain in Baghdad after the first gulf War started thats made CNN rich.

 

Here is short bio of Peter Arnett from http://www.hd.net/2002-prarchive/2002-01-10-01.html

 

Peter Arnett’s career as a war correspondent spans more than 40 years. He won the Pulitzer Prize for his intrepid coverage in Vietnam and helped change the face of TV news with his live reporting from Baghdad during the Gulf War as the only western journalist to remain during the conflict where he conducted the only wartime interview with Saddam Hussein . Arnett has reported extensively from Afghanistan, covering the Soviet Invasion in 1979 and the resistance to it during the 1980’s During the 1990’s, he reported extensively on Afghanistan’s growing role in international terrorism including a groundbreaking interview with Osama Bin Laden in 1997.

 

Anyway I agree with you, may Allah have mercy on our souls. Like a Canadian newspaper said "'US view of war is like US coffee: filtered!"

[Somaliland-Patriot]

Assalaamu Alaikum,

 

HornAfrique, it pays to not believe everything you read without checking it out. I can name you another Western journalist that was in Baghdad at the same time. His name is Brent Sadler, who used to work for ITN, and who is now CNN's Beirut bureau chief.

 

http://www.cnn.com/CNN/anchors_reporters/sadler.brent.html

 

Below is an excerpt from that article.

 

"Sadler also spearheaded ITN's coverage from Baghdad during the war in the Gulf. Aside from CNN's Peter Arnett, Sadler stayed in Baghdad longer than any other international broadcaster. At one point he was the only British television journalist in Baghdad reporting exclusively on the allies' bombardment of the city. "

 

May Allah make us among the righteous.

[Gabbal]

Somaliland Patriot, my fault, I should've said he was the only Western journalist to stay in Baghdad during the whole course of the first Gulf war.

 

Here is an excerpt from http://knightfellows.stanford.edu/public/lectures/arnette_bio.html

 

"Early in 1990, he transferred to CNN’s bureau in Jerusalem. He observed, studied and learned about the Mideast in depth, and was in the right place at the right time when the Gulf War began. He remained in Baghdad when other journalists left, and thus became the only western journalist to report from Iraq during the entire course of the war, and conducted the only interview with Saddam Hussein during the conflict."