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Peter Arnett - We need to know what happens in wars

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Long serving war reporter and 1966 Pulitzer prize winner Peter Arnett spoke to students in Texas this week about the job of journalism in a war zone. Arnett reported from the Vietnam war for a period of thirteen years and he compared that experience to present day Iraq,
Reports found it incredibly difficult to write many of the important stories at the beginning of the war, Arnett said, because all sources had to be attributed by name and because an officer had to be present during every interview journalists had with other soldiers. "These stories were never written," he said, "so the administration claims that we had succeeded in (Iraq), that the mission was accomplished. This was pretty much accepted by the American public, and the media wasn't in a very good position to challenge that." link
in 2003 Arnett was sacked by his employers NBC News, MSNBC and National Geographic Explorer for giving an interview to Iraqi television. He then went to work for The Daily Mirror.

1 Comment

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Jim Bodgener | December 7, 2008 9:03 PM

Hello, Mr Arnett,

Greetings. You may not remember me, we met only briefly in James Wilde's house in Cihangir, Istanbul. I then gave you a lift in my old Mercedes coupe, right hand drive, back to your hotel. You had chosen well.

Please see my biography of James's early life at the above website,

repeated: http://kenyatembo.giving.officelive.com/default.aspx

You may not be able to access this through the link, because I have reason to believe that the website is being blanked out somewhere. Just try Google with Kenya Tembo, or just James Wilde in this case.

Either way, this has also gone to Tim Page in Australia, amongst others.(tim@timpage.com.au)



Sore wrists,

Yours ever,

Jim Bodgener.