‘Scud Stud’ Fired : Television: NBC dismisses Arthur Kent, once one of its fastest-rising correspondents. Kent vows to clear his name.
NBC News on Friday fired Arthur Kent, the star of the network’s Persian Gulf War coverage and, as recently as six months ago, one of its fastest-rising correspondents.
The dismissal marked the culmination of a week of ugly accusations between Kent and the network about the personal integrity of those involved.
And it came at a time when Kent, who was slated to be a guest on NBC’s “The Tonight Show” on Friday until NBC executives vetoed the appearance, is besieged with calls from “every talk show in the nation” to make his case, according to his attorney, Bruce Lilliston.
NBC had said Aug. 13 that Kent had been suspended for allegedly refusing an assignment to Zagreb, Croatia, and NBC insiders later told The Times that he was “irrational” and his behavior “bizarre.”
But Kent, whom a former editor has described as “a professional’s professional,” said that the network set him up, and, vowing to clear his name, let loose a barrage of publicity against NBC. He flew to New York from Rome, and even took to the streets last week, handing out leaflets explaining his position to people outside NBC’s headquarters.
In an interview in Los Angeles Friday morning, he spoke quietly about what he said was a campaign against him “by a subsidiary of one of the largest corporations in the world”--General Electric, which owns NBC.
“I need acknowledgment of the fact that they’ve wronged me,” said Kent, whose attorney has threatened a defamation suit against the network.
Kent said that his firing did not include a severance package. He called it “a totally redundant, sad gesture, totally devoid of imagination, which speaks volumes about the management team at NBC News.”
NBC News executives, for their part, appear to regard Kent as a rogue reporter and a loose cannon. In press releases, interviews and letters to Kent’s attorney over the past few weeks, they said that he was unable to work with others or take direction from management.
“He can be one minute very clear and agreeable and charming and thoughtful, and the next minute, if something doesn’t work for him, he snaps into being very angry, irrational and paranoid,” claimed a high-ranking NBC News source, who asked not to be identified.
NBC officials said that their troubles with Kent began 18 months ago, in the wake of the correspondent’s popularity as the “Scud Stud,” as he was dubbed during his coverage of the Gulf War.
“He was thrust into stardom,” commented one observer who was close to the situation. “And the question was, was he prepared for it? The answer is no.”
The network tried to ease Kent into a position of greater prominence, a source said, only to encounter friction as the correspondent became dissatisfied with his bosses and the news product.
“There was a time when people thought there was some real potential for growth, and tried to figure out how to utilize his talents,” the source said. “But there were people who also believed that with the popularity from the Middle East war, he became more difficult and tried to use his popularity as a bargaining chip.”
Kent, who had been on staff at the network for three years and had worked for NBC on a contract basis since 1986, was tried out in several areas, according to NBC spokeswoman Peggy Hubble, including a position of higher prominence on “NBC Nightly News,” the prime-time magazine “Dateline NBC” and the network’s news desk.
But, she said, he was difficult to work with, often refusing to talk with his producers and engaging in disputes over assignments. When he refused to go to Zagreb, she said, that was the last straw.
Kent tells a similar story, but one that has a different emphasis and ending.
By his account, his transfer to “Dateline NBC” last spring meant a shift to a program where hard news stories of the type he excelled at would be welcomed. Instead, he said, he was pressured to turn in soft features, and the stories he produced were rarely aired.
After months of fighting for what he believed was right, Kent said, he asked to be removed from the show. And when that move was not accompanied by a rise in the status he said NBC had promised, he had Lilliston send a formal letter to NBC, telling the network that it was in breach of contract and declaring that Kent would not accept hazardous duty for one week, until the dispute was cleared up.
The next day, he and his producer, Joe Alicastro, were suspended, and NBC told reporters that he had refused to go to Zagreb, Kent said. (Alicastro was reinstated Friday, NBC said.)
After seeing stories about his suspension on television and in print, Kent said, he booked a plane to New York and started campaigning to clear his name.
The network, he said, had made him look like a coward for confirming his suspension for refusing the assignment on the same day that ABC-TV producer David Kaplan was killed in the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo. (Hubble said that NBC does not doubt Kent’s courage.)
Of his decision to hand out leaflets at NBC headquarters, Kent said, “It was a really unusual thing to do. I thought to myself as I was walking towards Rockefeller Center, ‘This is really scary. But I’m mad. I’m really mad.’ ”
Adrian Hamilton, deputy editor of the London Observer newspaper, said that he has known and worked with Kent for years, and disputed the network’s claim that the reporter was “irrational.”
“Irrational is a term people use when you disagree with them,” Hamilton said. “The idea of (his being) bizarre is bizarre in its own right. Arthur is incredibly straight.”
If Kent is guilty of anything, Hamilton said, it’s being obstinate about his convictions, which may have gotten him into trouble with NBC brass.
“He is an enormous believer in something which in television terms is probably a dying breed, which is the on-the-spot reporter who puts his own interpretation and feel on things,” Hamilton said.
Kent is stubborn, Hamilton said, but so is every good reporter he knows. The problem, he said, is that television news is becoming increasingly controlled by bureaucrats and “money-counters,” who do not understand journalism.
“He’s a professional’s professional,” Hamilton said. “What he’s not is an accountant’s professional.”
Kent said that he plans to continue to focus his attention on NBC until he’s satisfied that he has cleared his name. He hadn’t decided Friday whether he would accept any of the talk-show offers that he’d received.
When questions about him fade, he said, he wants to go to war-torn Yugoslavia to report on the story that NBC said he refused to cover.
And he claims he doesn’t think this public spat with the network will harm him in the long run.
“This is what the public expects of journalists,” Kent said, “to stand up and yell, ‘Lie!’ when we see it.”
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