OxBlog

# Posted 8:24 PM by David Adesnik

FIRE IN A CROWDED THEATER: Defending Peter Arnett is a lonely task, but I'm not going to give up just yet. In this post, I'm going to respond to three separate charges against Arnett that have been raised both by Josh's response to my original post as well as by multiple readers who have sent in their thoughts.

The relevant issues at hand are whether the substance of Arnett's remarks merited firing him, whether the consequences of his remarks merited firing him, and finally, whether the context in which he delivered them merited firing him.

As for substance, Josh points to the National Review's decision to fire Ann Coulter as an example of when it is appropriate to fire someone because of the substance of their remarks. But if you follow Josh's own link to NRO's official explanation for firing Coulter, you'll see that it had nothing to do with the content of her remarks.

As Jonah Goldberg clearly states, Coulter failed as a writer, not as a person. According to Golberg,

In the wake of her invade-and-Christianize-them column, Coulter wrote a long, rambling rant of a response to her critics that was barely coherent...

Running this "piece" would have been an embarrassment to Ann, and to NRO. Rich Lowry pointed this out to her in an e-mail (I was returning from my honeymoon). She wrote back an angry response, defending herself from the charge that she hates Muslims and wants to convert them at gunpoint.

Clearly, NRO did not fire Coulter becaue of her i"nvade-and-Christianize-them" column. It fired her because she refused to bring her work up to the publication's own standards. In fact, NRO didn't actually fire Coulter. Instead of responding to Lowery's e-mail, Coulter began to bash NRO in public forums, such as the WaPo. As Jonah Goldberg asks,

What publication on earth would continue a relationship with a writer who would refuse to discuss her work with her editors? What publication would continue to publish a writer who attacked it on TV? What publication would continue to publish a writer who lied about it — on TV and to a Washington Post reporter?

Insubordination, incompetence and deception. That is why Ann Coulter lost her job.

On a related point, reader PW challenges my statement

that journalists have the right to say whatever they want to say without having to worry they might be fired. This only seems correct because Arnett just barely crossed the line. Apply the same thought to a more extreme idea - if he had said that the Jews in the US were driving policy towards the middle east, say, something so obviously indefensible, and he were fired, I don't think you would be saying he must be kept on because of his right to free speech, so as a general principle, your statement fails.

I disagree. If Arnett had made such a monstrous statement, I would demand an apology but not his job. I might demand that NBC ask for his resignation, but the ultimate decision would have to stay in the hands of Arnett himself. If a journalist fulfills his or her duty to report the news as best as possible, his or her private views are not grounds for being fired.

Next we come to the question of consequences. Josh writes that Arnett's comments had

the effect of reinforcing the position of the Iraqi regime and discouraging critics of that regime. The appropriate parallel is Hanoi Jane, and if Fonda had been working for NBC at the time, she damn well should have been fired.

Jane Fonda aside, I think the Constitution is on my side here. The right to speak one's mind is the right to say things that have "the effect of reinforcing the position of the Iraqi regime" (with the obvious exception of revealing military secrets).

Nicholas de Genova's absurd remarks at a Columbia teach-in had the same effect. Every anti-war protest has the same effect. That is why we have a First Amendment.

The fact that Arnett is a journalist should not make any difference provided that he has not consciously distorted the truth in order to advance his political agenda. According to the AP report I cited yesterday, Arnett told Iraqi TV that

the United States was reappraising the battlefield and delaying the war, maybe for a week, 'and rewriting the war plan. The first war plan has failed because of Iraqi resistance. Now they are trying to write another war plan.'

Arnett said it was clear that, within the United States, opposition to the war was growing, along with a challenge to President Bush about the war's conduct.

If you ask me, those are some pretty bland comments coming from a guy who's openly anti-war.

It is also worth pointing out that journalists often have an obligation to report information that has the effect of reinforcing the position of the Iraqi regime. As Arnett remarked in his interview,

"Our reports about civilian casualties here, about the resistance of the Iraqi forces, are going back to the United States," he said. "It helps those who oppose the war when you...develop their arguments."

It's hard to disagree with Arnett on this point. If civlians die or if Coaltion forces lose battles, the public has a right to know. The public and its representatives can then decide whether enough civilians have died or battles have been lost for the United States to reconsider its plans.

The final issue at play is whether Arnett crossed the line by granting an interview to Iraqi TV. According to JS, "I believe the context in which Arnett gave the interview is pivotal to
why he was fired. He may be expressing his sincere views, but he did so to the controlled media of a brutal state, and to their benefit." Josh seems to agree (despite later contradicting himself), having written that "[Arnett] wasn't fired for what he said, but rather to whom he said it. He gave an interview to Iraqi state-run media..."

There is a strong argument to be made for all journalists refusing to cooperate with controlled, state-run media. As guardians of the right to self-expression, journalists have an obligation to speak out against all those attempt to deny it. Still, one has to ask whether NBC itself or most news organizations have an official policy that prohibits cooperation with state-run media. If any of you happen to know, please share.

However, in light of NBC's statement that Arnett should have asked permission before giving the interview, it seems right to infer that NBC has no objection in principle to cooperating with controlled media. (Then again, a spokesman for the network also said that "It was wrong for Mr. Arnett to grant an interview to state-controlled Iraqi TV, especially at a time of war." However, this sort of inconsistency only supports my point.)

Finally, reader CI writes that

If [Arnett] had said the same things on "Meet the Press" or on a Sky News interview, I suspect nothing at all would have happened.

Of course not. But that speaks to a lack of integrity on NBC's part, not Arnett's.