Irony always makes me happy. In today's LA Times, a story that conclusively proves that Peter Arnett either has a completely tin ear, is a fool, or most likely, simply belives in saying whatever his audience wants to hear.
Arnett Fuming at Loss of NBC Job
By Elizabeth Jensen, Times Staff WriterNEW YORK -- Peter Arnett said Tuesday he was upset with how NBC severed ties with him the day before, and sounded more defiant than apologetic over his decision to grant an interview to state-run Iraqi TV.
In an interview from Baghdad, where he hopes to stay if he can find enough work, Arnett called the controversy a "storm in a bloody teacup." He said he was irritated that he had spent 19 days helping NBC, whose own reporters left citing safety concerns, and "then I'm being trashed." Arnett's official Baghdad employer was National Geographic Explorer, which agreed to let him report for NBC. National Geographic fired Arnett on Monday.
...The irony part comes in the adjacent story on the same page:Indeed, many media observers have criticized Arnett more for where he made his comments than what he said.
NBC, he said, "was just grateful for anything I could give them" and used him up to 20 hours per day. "But in the end, I was thrown out on the street, and very casually, my reputation in shreds -- for what? For helping them out."
An NBC News spokeswoman said Tuesday: "Yesterday, on the 'Today' show, Peter Arnett said that he had made 'a stupid misjudgment.' And he apologized to us and the American people. We'll leave it at that."
Asked about that sober apology, Arnett said: "What choice did I have? I followed a young woman who was crying over the loss of her husband in a suicide attack." He called the situation "bizarre," noting, "I was fired on the 'Today' show, the most popular morning program."
He said he still believes, as he said on "Today," that it was a misjudgment to do the interview, "in view of the reaction to it." But he added, "I don't think anything I said to them was so terribly criminal."
Many observers took issue with Arnett's statement praising Iraq's treatment of foreign journalists, noting that some reporters are missing and others have been expelled. Arnett, who is on the board of the Committee to Protect Journalists, a nonprofit group based in New York that promotes global press freedom, said one reason he did the interview and made that comment was "to remind the Iraqi police and authorities that we are reasonable people, here to tell their story.
"I wanted to give a human face to the journalists ....This is a dangerous environment."
...
4 Journalists Freed From Iraqi PrisonYup, the foreign press are treated well in Iraq.By Josh Getlin, Times Staff Writer
NEW YORK -- Two Newsday journalists and two freelance photographers who had been missing in Iraq reached Jordan safely Tuesday after spending a week inside Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison, an editor at the newspaper said.
...
Sort of like those T-Shirts I saw once in Los Angeles. "Welcome to L.A., where we treat you like a King!"
Of course, the picture on the front was Rodney King...
Peter Arnett's latest faux pas is just the most recent. During Desert Storm he allowed himself to be used by the Iraqi propagandists to report their version of the war. On a CNN show, Arnett tried to discredit the U.S. military by fabricating an absurd story about the military targeting U.S. POWs who supposedly had defected and were killed by the use of nerve gas. That resulted in his being fired from CNN. Arnett has a tremendous drive to be the center of the story, perhaps in an effort to reproduce his reporting from Vietnam. Unfortunately that desire seems to cause him to ignore his responsibilities as a reporter. I think he was hoping to buy favor with the Iraqis and thus get a tremendous scoop - a personal interview with Saddam Hussein.