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Home/ stevenwarran's Library/ Notes/ January 17, 1991, Seattle Times, Bringing War To Living Room -- 3 CNN Reporters Were At The Front, by Sherry Stripling, Marsha King, Ferdinand M. De Leon, Elizabeth Rhodes,

January 17, 1991, Seattle Times, Bringing War To Living Room -- 3 CNN Reporters Were At The Front, by Sherry Stripling, Marsha King, Ferdinand M. De Leon, Elizabeth Rhodes,

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January 17, 1991, Seattle Times, Bringing War To Living Room -- 3 CNN Reporters Were At The Front, bSherry Stripling, Marsha King, Ferdinand M. De Leon, Elizabeth Rhodes, Times Staff,

Peter Arnett. Bernard Shaw. John Holliman.

Their live broadcasts from a room in a Baghdad hotel, while they sometimes hid underneath beds as artillery fired in the background, transfixed millions of television viewers around the world.

In the earliest stages of this war, when the fighting was carried on by such inhuman elements as "smart bombs," the three became our most visible heroes and only direct contact with what was happening in the Iraqi capital.

But at 8 a.m. PST yesterday, communication with the correspondents and the rest of their eight-person team was cut off by the Iraqis. By late afternoon, Cable News Network didn't know where they were and had no contingency plan for getting them out of Baghdad. The CNN team had been preparing to leave the city when the first bombs fell. Shaw had been in Baghdad for several days hoping for an interview with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein that he didn't get.

Then suddenly last night, the correspondents were back on the air - but very briefly. John Holliman, in a report he said was censored by the Iraqis, said he and his colleagues were fine, things were quiet and that was about it.

This morning, a CNN spokesman said Arnett and two members of the CNN team remained in Baghdad, while Holliman, Shaw and other journalists had departed for Jordan.

It wasn't the first time newsman Peter Arnett had been trapped behind enemy lines.

Arnett, who earned a Pulitzer Prize for his compelling firsthand reports of American involvement in Vietnam, was caught in Saigon when it fell in 1975, his 13th year of covering the war for The Associated Press. His war expertise was so keen he was able to judge how high the planes were flying over Baghdad by their sound.

Shaw is the no-nonsense anchor, winner of a Peabody Award. He traveled to Baghdad in September for an exclusive interview with Saddam.

Holliman is more the Everyman. Although professional as a newscaster - he also has won a Peabody - he brings a sort of down-home curiosity to goings-on that made the first moments of the war particularly real.

"It was his first war," said Gerry Yandel, the Atlanta Constitution's television reporter. "He kept bowing to Peter Arnett. 'Is this normal?' 'Is this what it would be like?'"

Their combination of styles and experience is part of what gave CNN its punch during the early hours of Iraqi war coverage, providing firsthand information for Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney while the country listened in.

The three drew some criticism for their humanness. Although the city of Atlanta, where CNN is based, is feeling a great deal of pride over the station's coverage, Yandel said he has heard a few despairing words that the broadcasters cracked jokes.

"I would think the most massive bombing raid in the history of the U.S. military would be a little stress-inducing," Yandel said.

Arnett, a native of New Zealand, spent 20 years as an AP correspondent. He covered the Iranian hostage crisis, the Jonestown massacre in Guyana and the Atlanta child murders.

In 1981 he joined CNN where he has been honored for his story on "Poisoning the Profit,'' a report linking organized crime with the illegal dumping of toxic wastes.

Arnett is the veteran. But it was John Holliman who coolly held a microphone on the window ledge in Baghdad to let the world hear the war.

Such an act fits for those who knew him early in his career.

In the early '70s Larry England worked with Holliman at WGAU and WRFC Radio in Athens, Ga. "Good under pressure," "Professional," "Never lost his cool" is how England, now the stations' operations manager, remembers the broadcaster.

"John's a very easy-going individual despite being very aggressive at the same time," said England who also calls him trustworthy and a hard worker.

A bit later in the '70s, Holliman joined the fledgling AP Radio Network as agricultural editor. He wrote farm stories for AP's national newspaper wire and a daily column for its broadcast wire.

The correspondent became part of the original CNN team in 1980 out of the Washington bureau. Since then he's covered agriculture, the White House and been chief daytime Washington anchor.

In 1989, he traveled to China reporting on the student demonstrations, the subsequent government crackdown and party purge.

Holliman is a graduate of the University of Georgia and received the 1976 Peabody Award for his documentary, "The Garden Plot - Food as a Weapon in International Diplomacy."

Then there's CNN anchor Bernard Shaw.

One of the few moments to survive in the nation's memory from the 1988 presidential campaign involved Shaw and a question he asked. The question is credited by some political observers with driving the final nail in the doomed presidential campaign of Michael Dukakis. The moment came during the final presidential debate and the question - put bluntly to Dukakis by Shaw - was this: "Governor, if Kitty Dukakis were raped and murdered, would you favor an irrevocable death penalty for the killer?"

Dukakis, standing by his long-held belief of opposing the death penalty, answered the question calmly and coolly - too coolly. He came off sounding like a cold fish, compounding a fatal image problem.

In September 1990, shortly after the invasion of Kuwait, Shaw went to Baghdad for an exclusive interview with Saddam. That same month, he covered the superpower summit from Helsinki, Finland.

Shaw, 49, began his journalism career in Chicago radio in 1964. He later moved to Washington and joined CBS in 1971. Before joining the newly started CNN in 1980, he was at ABC, where he was the senior Capitol Hill correspondent.

Arnett. Holliman. Shaw.

"They are all my friends," said Lisa Dallos, CNN spokeswoman in Washington, D.C., late yesterday afternoon. "They are heroic, not only the three of them, but the other staff people in Baghdad.

"We are extremely worried about them."

-- By Times staff reporters Sherry Stripling, Marsha King, Ferdinand de Leon and Elizabeth Rhodes.

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