the deciding moment of Peter Arnett's career

On the flip side, I'd guess that if an Iraqi journalist gave an interview to NBC saying that Iraq was loosing than he'd prolly get a bit worse than fired.

(I agree with Arnett's comments by the way... just think he was a bit naff and prolly deserves what he got.)

(wrote this before seeing Ed's post--take my questions hypothetically)

I think the problem is more that he sounded more like a pro-Iraqi op-ed column rather than being a reporter.

Not at all, but it's not necessarily the job of a reporter, whose job it is to fairly report news and not comment upon it or be interviewed about it.

just because Fox news is an abomination, doesn't mean that two journalistic wrongs make a right.

If he was coerced, was his life threatened had he refused? Nic Robertson and his producers were thrown out of the country, but they weren't harmed.

exactly. I was very surprised about NBC's initial backing of him. Also, his remarks were so professionally self-destructive that I thought he might have been under the effects of sodium pentathol or something.

I supported his extremely challenging reporting during the first Gulf War (the bombed baby formula factory etc), but I think he really lost it doing that interview...

Remember, this is a guy who fought off charges that he was overly sympathetic to Iraq in the first Gulf War. This is also a guy who narrated a story for CNN that had to be retracted because it contained false information about the use of nerve gas by Americans.

There's nothing wrong with giving interviews to Iraq TV. Other journos have done it and will continue to do so. It's great that Arnett fancies himself some sort of renegade, but at this juncture the last thing the major networks want to have is a reputation for opinionated reporting. At least the non-Fox ones, I imagine.

Iraqi resistance exists, yes, but it is accomplishing nothing. Where their forces are not deserting or surrendering, they are being slaughtered. Meanwhile, coalition casualties number around 70, with another couple dozen captured or missing. How could anyone reasonably expect this war to be going any better?

Which ones were those?

and

"That is why now America is re-appraising the battlefield, delaying the war, maybe a week, and re-writing the war plan. The first war plan has failed because of Iraqi resistance now they are trying to write another war plan."

Are both false.

There's no evidence America's war plan has been rewritten--adapted somewhat, perhaps--but that's not what Arnett's comments implied at all. There's also no evidence that the first war plan "failed" (what exactly was that first plan anyway, Peter?). In fact, the military is notorious for contingencies--the lack of Turkey as a land base being much more notable than the nebulous "determination" Arnett is enamored by, for example--and to reduce the entire US strategy down to a single wargame where several "senior officials" allege that the effect of militias were ignored is hardly a foundation to support Arnett's comments.

Also, one of the prime reasons CNN was known as the Clinton News Network had to do with the president of the network being a close friend of the sitting president.

So who's his little Jedi plaything, then?

I wouldn't trust him to go up against a remote with the blast shield up, much less be the chosen one out killing people in the desert who insulted his family...hey!

Under the Constitution, giving "aid and comfort" to a wartime enemy can lead to a charge of treason. So far as I know no one has yet suggested that Peter Arnett be charged with that capital offense. But it seems that Mr. Arnett hangs by a rope of his own weaving.

Mr. Arnett, of course, is the former reporter in Baghdad for NBC and National Geographic who was fired for giving an interview to state-controlled Iraqi television. In the interview he criticized the American military effort and praised the morale of the Iraqi people and the cooperation of Iraq's information ministry — this latter despite the fact that many American correspondents have been ejected from the country and, indeed, two of them are missing, last heard from in Baghdad.

There is no excuse for Mr. Arnett's lack of judgment, and he has apologized for it. However, journalists — especially those who have had to deal with foreign governments at times of extreme tension — will recognize a motivation in his acceptance of the interview. They can recognize it without excusing it.

There is an adage concerning a reporter's dealings with the secrecy that surrounds most government activities, not only here at home but to a greater extent in countries that do not share the American concept of freedom of the press. The adage is this: A reporter is only as good as his sources.

Clearly Mr. Arnett, in granting the interview, was cozying up to sources he depended on for, first, their tolerance of him in Baghdad and, second, any information he could get: about Iraq's military posture, its claims of combat successes and techniques, and the morale of its populace.

In this regard, Mr. Arnett was a valuable correspondent in the enemy's capital. As long as he pleased and even seemed to sympathize with his Baghdad sources, he was permitted to broadcast to America. It is even conceivable that his inside look was of some value to our own military.

Mr. Arnett was an honored reporter for The Associated Press in Vietnam; he won a Pulitzer Prize for his coverage. He earned respect from his colleagues for his extraordinary courage and daring and for his knowledgeable dispatches. His admired modesty suffered somewhat after he became a TV reporter and won acclaim for his bravado in staying in Baghdad in 1991 to report for CNN. He even said in his interview last weekend that if U.S. war planners had listened to his more recent broadcasts they would have known of the strength of the Iraqi Army and the devotion of the Iraqi people.

His long experience makes it all the more difficult to understand how he could have been so grossly irresponsible in granting that interview. He besmirched his reputation, offended a nation and lost his job — justifiably so — even though he will still report for The Daily Mirror in Britain.

But Mr. Arnett's firing is more than a personal setback. With him gone from the airwaves, Americans have lost an eye on Baghdad that had proved a valuable addition to our knowledge of a mysterious enemy.

Walter Cronkite was anchor of the CBS Evening News from 1962 to 1981.

As far as I know NBC is a private company. Just as Clear Channel is allowed to stop playing the DCs for saying stuff that alienates 90% of their audience, NBC is allowed to fire journalists who say things that alienate whoever the hell it is who still watches NBC/MSNBC etc for news coverage. It's their money. Congrats on Mr. Arnett for his new job at the Mirror. I'm sure that fine publication will allow him to say whatever is on his mind without any fear of retribution whatsoever.

No, no, no, M., NBC is part of the m___, i___, e___ complex....

Seriously, you're right, of course, NBC is a private, for profit company that will always play to the perceived interests of its viewers. But that's not what's interesting here, I think. What's different is that everybody knows this except journalists. They have this idea that they play by different rules, that their job is a vocation like the priesthood. Arnett appears baffling to both the networks and fellow journalists because he doesn't seem to be playing by anybody's rule book, or doctrine (got to be one of the dumbest of the military's many, many dumb terms). Therefore, what I see as the perplexed tone in the Cronkite editorial--"Why would he do this? Is it treason? Is it stupidity? I can't figure it out..." muses Walter.

Meanwhile, coalition forces have tightened the noose to within 19 miles of Bagdhad (the city, not the division - it's been destroyed).

Also pre-war, and even now to some extent, the pentagon was as leaky as a seive. There seem to be a lot of vested interests keen to see Rumsfeld fail not to the extent of loosing the war but just enough to stop his military reforms in their tracks.