CHICAGO - Two well-known television reporters covering the war in Iraq drew criticism for compromising objectivity and troop security on Monday, highlighting the potential pitfalls of documenting a conflict in real time.
Backing away from its initial support of him, NBC on Monday severed ties with Peter Arnett because the Baghdad-based veteran correspondent criticized U.S. strategy and praised Iraqi resolve on state-run Iraqi TV.
And Fox News Channel's Geraldo Rivera was reportedly booted out of Iraq after diagramming on air the intended plans of the U.S. military unit with which he was traveling.
The Rivera situation, however, grew murkier as the day progressed, with two Pentagon officials initially saying he would be asked to leave Iraq and the 101st Airborne Division unit south of Baghdad, but Fox News replying that as far as the cable-news provider knew, Rivera had not been asked to leave.
Ever the blusterer, Rivera came on Fox News Channel live from Iraq to blame "the rats at my former network NBC ... spreading some lies about me" and declare his intention to "march into Baghdad" with the unit.
Defense Department spokesman Bryan Whitman had told Reuters that Rivera was being asked to leave because the commander in his area felt the reporter had "compromised operational security," a violation of Pentagon guidelines for reporters traveling with U.S. forces in Iraq.
Whatever happens with Rivera, Monday counts as a bad day for war reporting, experts said, because the public tends to draw its lessons about journalists from its highest-profile practitioners.
"When you have a day like this where both Peter Arnett and Geraldo Rivera are in the news for errors in judgment in war coverage, the profession of journalism is tarnished, and that draws away from what I believe is some really fine work done by hundreds of reporters and photojournalists" in the war, said Bob Steele, director of the ethics program at the Poynter Institute for Media Studies.
NBC was initially supportive of Arnett after the former CNN correspondent and 1966 Pulitzer Prize winner told Iraqi TV in a weekend interview that the first U.S. war plan had "failed" and that America had "misjudged the determination of the Iraqi forces."
Although the remarks drew widespread criticism Sunday, an NBC spokeswoman defended them as "analytical in nature and ... not intended to be anything more."
But early Monday morning, NBC News changed its mind and cut Arnett loose from his freelance relationship with NBC and MSNBC, saying in a statement that "it was wrong for Mr. Arnett to grant an interview to state controlled Iraqi TV - especially at a time of war - and it was wrong for him to discuss his personal observations and opinions."
Separately, the "National Geographic Explorer" TV program, which had initially sent Arnett to Baghdad for a series of documentaries because of his experience as a CNN reporter in Baghdad during the 1991 war, also ended its relationship with the New Zealand native and American citizen.
Appearing on NBC's "Today Show" Monday, Arnett was profusely apologetic, but not so much for what he had said and to whom as for its effects.
"I said in that interview essentially what we all know about the war," he told host Matt Lauer. "There have been delays in implementing policy. There's been surprises. But clearly by giving that interview to Iraqi television, I created a firestorm in the United States, and for that I am truly sorry."
Some experts said Arnett's breach was probably as much political as it was ethical, especially in a competitive environment where no media outlet wants to be viewed as unpatriotic.
"I think, frankly, the punishment was a little harsh," said Joseph Angotti, a longtime NBC News executive who chairs the broadcast program at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism. "He didn't think it through to think how they could take what he said and manipulate it for propaganda."
At the same time, Angotti said, "there's this patriotism thing going on in the media," with Fox News Channel "waving the flag" and winning the cable news ratings battle.
"I think NBC thought, maybe, well, keeping Peter may seem like we're the unpatriotic network," he said.
"This is career suicide more than it is some great ethical breach," agreed Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, arguing that formerly strict rules against reporters commenting on stories they cover have softened in the face of media outlets' desire for publicity.
But the net effect, Rosenstiel emphasized, was the same: a destruction of Arnett's credibility on the story.
Arnett, who seemed chagrined and saddened at losing his place on the story, was later reportedly hired by a British tabloid. "Fired by America for telling the truth," the Daily Mirror said in a Page 1 headline. The paper opposes the war.
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