{"id":58,"date":"2003-04-02T15:24:41","date_gmt":"2003-04-02T15:24:41","guid":{"rendered":"0"},"modified":"2006-09-28T12:07:55","modified_gmt":"2006-09-28T12:07:55","slug":"calling_alanis_morissette","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/?p=58","title":{"rendered":"Calling Alanis Morissette"},"content":{"rendered":"

Irony always makes me happy. In today’s LA Times, a story<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

Arnett Fuming at Loss of NBC Job<\/b><\/p>\n

By Elizabeth Jensen, Times Staff Writer<\/p>\n

NEW 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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

…<\/b><\/p>\n

Indeed, many media observers have criticized Arnett more for where he made his comments than what he said.<\/p>\n

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.”<\/p>\n

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.”<\/p>\n

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.”<\/p>\n

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.”<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

“I wanted to give a human face to the journalists ….This is a dangerous environment.”<\/p>\n

…<\/b><\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The irony part comes in the adjacent story<\/a> on the same page:<\/p>\n

4 Journalists Freed From Iraqi Prison<\/b><\/p>\n

By Josh Getlin, Times Staff Writer<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

…<\/b><\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yup, the foreign press are treated well in Iraq.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 Writer NEW YORK — […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=58"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=58"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=58"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=58"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}