NBC said buh-bye to Peter Arnett today because he gave an interview to Iraqi television that was slightly critical of the US attacks. The interview stated the obvious in the fact that the militarty plans seem to be going not as smoothly due to some interesting Iraqi fighting techniques. NBC felt that he shouldn't have given the interview since he was currently freelancing for them in Baghdad.
Okay fine. You have to toe the company line. I get that. I write for a large media company. In fact, I am not 100% sure what Peter said either as Iraqi TV is no longer on my cable system. My qualms exist in the possibility that he could have said these things on NBC. He could, couldn't he? He is a reporter right? He is to report what he sees and what has happened? Suddenly we seem to be having Connie Chung 2 here...
Of course, I have always been cynical on any reporting since everyone has a vested interest in something. My fear in this age of people too lazy to challenge their government (or perhaps even too scared) that people are too accepting. We have become multimedia drones ... all too often because these networks tell us what to think. It's a vicious circle indeed.
As a side note, NBC is owned by General Electric which makes important parts for the military. They are also tied to Microsoft in the venture know as MSNBC. Microsoft recently got a softer hand slapping in their anti-trust suit.
*cross-posted at brianlewandowski.com
.jpg?t=20130517094513)
Article comments
1 - san
Thing is: last night NBC issued a public statement supporting Arnett. Then this morning, he's fired. Glad NBC isn't publicly supporting me.
Note that he's also on assignment for National Geographic, so he may be sticking around Baghdad until the Stasi get to them, too.
2 - James Russell
Hard to know what to make of this case. Arguably Arnett shouldn't have done what he did, but then again arguably neither should the network. At any rate it does little to promote an image of themselves as being independent and trustworthy news sources...
3 - san
I think it was more the message than the medium that concerned them. They didn't like that Arnett analyzed the initial war plan as a failure and indicated that there was no plan B. It was rather convenient that he gave the interview to Iraqi state TV instead of, say, a Swedish broadcast network. Made it rather easy to sack him.
All water over the dam, though: less than 24 hours later, Arnett had a new job with a Brit outlet.