Peter Arnett

In his five-hour interview, Peter Arnett talks about his early years, and his first journalism jobs, at newspapers like The Southland Times and The Sydney Sun. He describes his time at the Associated Press, first in Laos, and later in Indonesia. He chronicles reporting on the Vietnam War for the AP, where his coverage of the Tet Offensive received complaints from the Johnson Administration. He recalls being hired by then-fledgling cable news outlet CNN, where he filed several reports as a correspondent in South America. Arnett details reporting for CNN from the Al Rashid Hotel in Baghdad the evening that American bombing on the city commenced during the Gulf War, and the various challenges he faced during that reporting, from Iraqi security forces censoring his reports, to growing criticism from America on the substance of those reports. He speaks of his interviews with both Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden, as well as the biggest challenges facing journalists during the Trump administration. Tom Herman conducted the interview on November 19, 2018 in New York, NY.