The Daily Mirror snapped up Pulitzer prize-winning US broadcaster Peter Arnett almost as soon as NBC sacked him during a firestorm of publicity over his interview with Iraqi TV.
Arnett, whose broadcasts for CNN from Baghdad in the first Gulf War made him an overnight star, was back in the Iraqi capital when he criticised the current US war strategy on state television. It had failed, he maintained. NBC sacked him on the grounds that it was wrong for him to give the interview, “especially at a time of war”.
The anti-war Daily Mirror announced on Tuesday that Arnett was “fired for telling the truth; hired by the Daily Mirror to carry on telling it”.
It had commissioned Arnett to write an article in November, so had his agent’s details to hand when the news of his dismissal came. “He put our proposal to Peter who agreed almost immediately. Peter likes the Mirror,” said editor Piers Morgan.
Arnett, 68, will write eight pieces for the paper exclusively over the next four weeks.
Arnett was given a double-page spread to propound his view on the war, headlined: “This war’s NOT working.”
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