March 31, 2003
Free press? What free press?
Although other bloggers are giving the story about
NBC firing Peter Arnett relatively little attention, this is something that should be examined just a little more closely.
Yeah, it's possible that Arnett is glory-hunting. It's also possible that he's trying to report the news to the best of his ability. Judging by his past performance, I think that the latter is more likely than the former. If this is true, then why did NBC fire him? Why did CNN not renew his contract in 1998? It sounds to me like there's more to this than is being said explicitly.
First off, so what if Arnett interviewed Iraqi TV? So what if he expressed his personal views. And what does "in time of war" have to do with reporting the news? Does this mean that we should carefully avoid saying anything controversial while a war is going on? Apparently so.
I think that NBC fired Arnett because he reported stuff that they didn't want him to report. Whether this was based on pressure from the Administration or pressure from the parent corporation is irrelevant. Either way, it's censorship, it's suppression of news reporting that disagrees with what those in charge want said.
It's not the first time that this has happened in the last two years. I'm sure it won't be the last.
Whatever happened to those news organizations that supported their reporters, no matter what? Gone the way of most of our civil rights, I suspect.