In 1991, Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait beneath orders of President Saddam Hussein and the following Persian Gulf Warfare grew to become a TV information game-changer. Satellite tv for pc-delivered information, a brand new expertise, allowed viewers to expertise the shock and awe of a serious worldwide battle dwell of their houses for the primary time. That struggle is credited with remodeling CNN, which began broadcasting in 1980, right into a 24-hour, international information powerhouse. And it launched quite a few media stars, not the least of which was Arthur Kent, a good-looking Canadian struggle journalist whose dwell stories for NBC amid raining Scud missiles earned him the nickname the “Scud Stud.”
Kent, now 71, lives in his residence province of Alberta, not removed from the place he bought his begin in journalism, as a reporter for The Calgary Herald. “I’m nonetheless energetic,” he tells The Hollywood Reporter. “I’m nonetheless a card-carrying member of the Worldwide Federation of Journalists, and although I’m in arrears on my dues, the Nationwide Press Membership in Washington.”
As President Trump mulls having the U.S. army be part of Israel in its air assaults on Iran, THR reached out to Kent for his eager insights on the grim realities that will lie forward. Because it seems, the Scud Stud is greater than only a fairly face.
Ken Regan, Digicam 5
The Gulf Warfare was a groundbreaker by way of information protection. We’re after all in a really completely different media surroundings in 2025 because the U.S. mulls getting concerned within the Israel-Iran battle. Community and cable information isn’t what’s was once. Is it as much as the duty of overlaying what could possibly be our subsequent Center East struggle?
You have to take into account the depth of those conflicts, the depth of the violence in Ukraine, in Israel, in Gaza, and now between Iran and Israel, and the velocity of communication and the politicization of the information. I’m in awe of the work being achieved. There’s no scarcity of reporters on the market wanting to throw themselves into these tales. I imply, my contemporaries who’re nonetheless at it — Christiane Amanpour and Wolf Blitzer at CNN; Anderson Cooper is reporting from Tel Aviv proper now. Lyse Doucet and Jeremy Bowen at BBC — man, I’ve seen them have moments in Ukraine that my coronary heart rises to my throat. After which the brand new era of reporters like Clarissa Ward and Jeremy Diamond at CNN and on the BBC, this younger man, Quentin Somerville. Have you ever seen his stories from the ditch warfare in Ukraine? That’s hardcore.
With regard to Iran now, there’s no scarcity of expertise prepared to throw themselves on the story. It’s simply very tough. Iran has been a really tough jurisdiction to penetrate for many years and much more so for the reason that demonstrations of the final three years.
Wouldn’t it be not possible to even get in there?
Individuals are going to do it. It’s going to occur. [Kent emailed later: “Looks like CNN managed to get Fred Pleitgen and a crew into Tehran.”]
What questions would you ask of our lawmakers?
The primary query I might ask, after all, given the Gulf Warfare, Afghanistan and Iraq as I lined them, is when are these politicians going to get up to what one of the best of their generals will inform them? You possibly can’t depend on air energy alone. If you happen to get very bold with air energy in Iran, you higher be able to put some boots on the bottom, particularly in the event you’re speaking about taking part with the present authorities of Israel in an tried regime change.
I see reporters elevating these questions now. So I simply suppose all of us need to be deeply frightened. All of us keep in mind the circumstances of the launching of the invasion of Iraq in 2003, the best way that Colin Powell was abused by some political and intelligence and army personalities into misrepresenting the character of the menace; the best way that each the Bush and the Blair authorities within the U.Okay. did violence to the intelligence assessments to create extra of a pro-war environment. So we’ve to be involved about that.
Christiane was on CNN [yesterday] interviewing the deputy international minister of Iran, and he gave a response to the president: “We’ll don’t have any possibility however to retaliate if the USA assaults us.” Christiane made the purpose that the overwhelming majority of the individuals in Iran need freedom. They’re like us. You possibly can’t go to Iran and never assist however be struck by the sophistication, the intelligence, the heat, the humor. As you’ve gotten lined with this 12 months’s Palme d’Or winner, the creative ability of filmmaking beneath these circumstances — these are individuals who deserve and wish freedom.
However is that this the time and are these the circumstances the place a preferred rebellion would achieve success? That’s the query. So this can be very nerve wracking to listen to that the Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier is being dispatched to the area. A number of deadly {hardware} is being poured into the area, and but there appears to be an absence of solutions. That’s the place these reporters are available in.
Folks have been steadily shifting away from legacy information organizations and counting on X and different social media to get their information. However how have you learnt what you’re seeing is actual or what it’s labeled as?
Social media and the best way they’re unregulated and beneath solely very passive management by the people who find themselves making billions of {dollars} on them are by no means going to compete with the legacy media by way of trustworthiness.
However they’re dropping viewers. Budgets have been slashed. Journalists laid off.
I might say that the disaster of confidence needs to be met by journalists, by editors, but in addition by proprietors and homeowners. Possibly I’m a voice within the wilderness, however I might encourage any communications and content-centric conglomerate that thinks that they’ll simply eliminate a standard legacy broadcast information channel or cable information channel to suppose once more, as a result of the enduring worth of our legacy media goes to be within the data and the integrity that they bring about to deciphering the fakes that at the moment are clouding the horizon and attending to the actual information that matter.
Is Iran near its breakout level, the place it might really develop a deliverable nuclear weapon, or is it not? That is life and demise stuff for all of us. Greater than ever, individuals have gotten to look to reliable information reportage for solutions and for understanding.
For those that weren’t round throughout the first Gulf Warfare, while you grew to become very well-known, how was it completely different? It made CNN, it made you. What was so revolutionary concerning the protection occurring on the time?
It was 1990 after which the winter of 1991. There we had been in Saudi Arabia. And we had the most recent up-to-date satellite tv for pc expertise in order that we may uplink our cameras and video decks to London and New York and feed our sign out. We had been being closely censored by the federal government — United States and Saudi Arabia had been conserving us 200 miles from the entrance line, the entrance line being Kuwait, which had been invaded by Saddam Hussein’s military.
However very shortly into the air struggle, Saddam Hussein started launching Scud missiles, principally souped-up Soviet missiles, the jalopies of rocket warfare. However they might carry a 2000-pound warhead. So that they had been harmful. And he began firing them at Israel and Saudi Arabia, together with proper on our location on the air base in Dhahran in Saudi Arabia, which was protected by the primary era of Patriot anti-ballistic missile methods.
So actually once we had been dwell one night time overlaying the plane taking off from the air base to go bomb Iraqi positions in Kuwait to begin the struggle that might take Kuwait again from Iraq, we heard these loud explosions — rockets taking off close to us after which intercepting, however not destroying, incoming Scud missiles. We had been going dwell for NBC into the halftime of the AFC last NFL sport. And within the third quarter, the Payments had been 30 factors forward, considered one of these assaults befell. So 55 million Individuals had been watching the soccer sport, and all of the sudden it minimize to us. It was only a story that actually fell on our heads.
We had been really 200 miles from the actual story, and I keep in mind our colleague, Bob Simon of CBS Information, he and his crew, slightly than remaining in Dhahran, broke the principles and truly bought into Kuwait and had been taken captive by Iraqi forces. We ran a clip of Bob saying, “Our job is to get the story, and their job is attempting to cease us. Let’s see who wins.” That was dedication. They had been finally launched, they survived, but it surely was a really tough go for them.
I do know this nickname has adopted you in all places, however when did individuals begin calling you the “Scud Stud?” How did that change your life?
I believe it was younger producer working in consumption on the NBC station in San Francisco. Simply blurted it out one night time.
On the air?
No, internally, after they had been taking a feed from New York into San Francisco. However individuals simply began repeating it internally, and the following factor it bought out [into public usage]. It was the form of graveyard humor that happens throughout struggle, and all of us thought it was amusing once we had been reporting the struggle. However the nickname wasn’t something that we zeroed in on. However the viewers response to our reporting bought us on the air extra typically. And so I used to be in a position to discuss concerning the censorship that we had been experiencing. I bought to host hourlong information specials for NBC. However none of us took [the nicknames] severely.
Did you’re feeling such as you had been being objectified or did it observe you round after the struggle and annoy you?
The one time that it grew to become a problem was when someone [called me Scud Stud] out of jealousy or spite. It’s a must to let that roll off your again.