Revolutionary Moderation

Peter Arnett is a real reporter



No embedding for this guy. Peter Arnett had remained in Baghdad, long after CNN was tossed out for being biased. This weekend, he was interviewed by Iraqi television, and told the truth as he saw it.



This is the fellow who in '91 identified a bombed building as a milk formula factory, earning the ire of the GHW Bush administration who was claiming the same building was producing biological weapons.



Now NBC has cut their ties with Arnett, because he committed the sin of reporting. He told the Iraqi television audience that the American army wasn't expecting resistance, and the resistance they've found has left the original war plan in disarray. Which is pretty clearly verifiable from other sources. In other words, he wasn't speaking as a propagandist, but as a reporter. And he was giving a courtesy to a government that has let him remain while it has removed other American reporters for being propagandist for the American government.



Now, I understand the propaganda value of having a foreign, english-speaking reporter saying to an Iraqi audience "Your resistance is working." But if it's the truth, is it still propaganda? And as a foreign national (he's New Zealander, not American... he is therefore not a member of the "Coalition of the Willing") does he have a responsibility to consider the propaganda uses of his reporting? Or does he just have a responsibility to report?



As an aside, must every mention of Iraqi television begin with the adjective "state-run"? We know who runs it. Not every mention of CNN is preceded with the adjective "Corporate-owned". In fact, outside of protest marches, I've never heard that. Perhaps that's the adjective used on Iraqi television. State-run, you know. Like the CBC. Which explains why the Air Farce hasn't been cancelled.