Peter Arnett, pulitzer prize winning cnn journalist, dies at age 91

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/17/world/peter-arnett-dead.html

Peter Arnett, an intrepid Associated Press combat correspondent who won a Pulitzer Prize for coverage of the Vietnam War and who became one of the world’s best-known television reporters on the scene of wars and insurrections for 18 years with CNN, died on Wednesday in Newport Beach, Calif. He was 91.

His daughter, Elsa, said the cause was prostate cancer.

From Vietnam’s jungles to Iraq, where he interviewed President Saddam Hussein, Mr. Arnett broke news and rules, infuriated national leaders and inspired generations of journalists. He was twice among the last Western TV broadcasters in Baghdad — as the Persian Gulf War began in 1991 and as an American-led coalition invaded in 2003.

Over 45 years, by his own account, he covered 17 wars in Asia, the Middle East, Europe and Latin America, first for The Associated Press and later for CNN and other television and print organizations. He made television documentaries, wrote two books, lectured widely and in 1997 interviewed Osama bin Laden, the leader of the Al Qaeda terrorist organization, somewhere in Afghanistan.