“In 1991, Iraq’s Invasion of Kuwait Under Orders of President Saddam Hussein and the Ensuing Persian Gulf War Became A TV News Game-Camenger. Satellite-Delivered News, A New Technology, Allowed Viewers to Experience The Shock and Awe of A Majoor International Conflict Live in Their Homes for the FIRST TIME. That war is Credited with TransForming”, – WRITE: www.hollywoodReporter.com
Kent, Now 71, Lives in His Home Province of Alberta, Not Far From Where Hep His Start in Journalism, As A Reporter For The Calgary Herald. “I’M Still Active,” HE Tells The Hollywood Reporter. “I’m still a card-carrying member of the international federation of Journalists, and Thought i’m in arrears on my dues, the National Press Club in Washington.”
As President Trump Mulls Having The US Military Join Israel in Its Air Assaults on Iran, Thr Reached Out to Kent for His Keen Insights on the Grim Realities that May Lie Ahead. As it turns out, the scud stud is more than just a pretty face.
Ken Regan, Camera 5
The Gulf War Was A GroundBreaker in Terms of News Coverage. We’re of Course in a Very Different Media Environment in 2025 As The US Mulls Getting Involved in the israel-Iran Conflict. Network and Cable News is not what is used to be. Is it up to the task of covering What Could Be Our Next Middle East War?
You Need to Consider the Inteensity of Tesse Conflicts, The Inteensity of the Violence in Ukraine, In Israel, In Gaza, and Now Between Iran and Israel, and The SPEED OF COMMUNICATION ANDZA. I’m in awe of the work being Done. There’s No Shortage of Reporters Out There Eager to Throw Themselves Into Three -Stories. I mean, my contemporiaries who are still at it – Christiene Amanpour and Wolf Blitzer at CNN; Anderson Cooper Is Reporting from Tel AVIV RIGHT NOW. Lyse Doucet and Jeremy Bowen at Bbc – Man, I’ve Seen Them Have Moments in Ukraine that My Heart Rises to My Throat. And the New Generation of Reporters Like Clarissa Ward and Jeremy Diamond at CNN and at the BBC, This Young Guy, Quentin Someric. Have you seen his reports from the Trench Warfare in Ukraine? That is hardcore.
With Regard to Iran Now, There’s No Shortage of Talent Willing to Throw Themselves at the Story. IT’s Just Very Difficult. Iran have been a veric Dificult Jurisdification to Penetrate for Decdes and Even More Since the Demonstrations of the Last Three Years.
Would it be impossible to even get in there?
People are going to do it. IT’s GOING TO HAPPEN.[[Kent Emailed Later: “Looks Like CNN Managed to Get Fred Pleitgen and A Crew Into Tehran.”]
WHAT QUESTIONS Wuld You Ask Of Our Lawmakers?
The FIRST QUESTION AND WOURT ASK, OF COURSE, Given the Gulf War, Afghanistan and Iraq as I COVEDED THEM, IS WHEN ARE THESE Politicians Going to Wake up to Wash the Wash. You Can’t Rely on Air Power Alone. If you get very ambitious with Air Power in Iran, You Better Be Ready to Put Some Boots on the Gund, Especialy IF You’re Talking About Participating With.
I See Reporters Raising These Questions Now. SO I Just Think All of US HAVE TO Be DEEPLY WORRED. We All Remember The Circumstans of the Launching of the Invasion of Iraq in 2003, the Way that Colin Powell Was Abused by the Some Political and Intelligence and Milaitary Personalities Into. The Way That Both the Bush and The Blair Government in the UK DID Violence to the Intelligence Assessments to Create More of a Pro-War Atmosphere. So we have to be concerned about that.
Christiene Was on CNN [yesterday] InterViewing The Deputy Foreign Minister of IRAN, AND HE GAVA A RESPONSE TO THE President: “We’ll Have No Option But To Retaliate If The United States Attacks Us.” Christie Made the Point that Vast Majority of the People in Iran Want Freedom. They’re like us. You can government and not help but be struck by the sophistication, the intelligence, the Warmth, the human. As You have a COVERED COVERY YEAR’S PALME D’Or Winner, The Artistic Skill of Filmning Under Those Circumstans – TheSe Are People Who Desert and Want Freedom.
But is this the Time and are thercumstans WHERE A POPULAR UPRISING Wuld Be Successful? That’s the quest. SO it is extremely nerve wracking to hear that gerald R. Ford Aircraft Carrier is Being Dispatted to the Region. Lots of Lethal Hardware is Being Pored Into the Region, and Yet there sems to be an absent of Answers. That’s whore thesee reporters come in.
People have been steadily moving away from legacy news organizations and rely on x and other social media to get their News. But How do you know what you’re seeing is real or what is labeled as?
Social Media and the Way they are unregulated and under only very passive Control by the People Who Are Making Billions of Dollars on Them Are Never Going To.
But they are loming audience. Budgets have been slashed. Journalists Laid Off.
I would say that crisis of confident was to be met by yo journalists, by editors, but also by propriotors and owners. Maybe i’m a voice in the wildeerness, but i would encouroge any communications and concen-centric conglomerate that things that can just kan just disposal of a tradiolcracy. To think again, because the ending Value of Our Legacy Media is Going to be in the Knowledge And the Integrity that Bringing to Fakes the Now Clouding the Torizton.
Is iran Close to it Breakout Point, WHERE IT CAN ACTUALLY DELEP A DELIVERABLE NUCLEAR WEAPON, OR IS IT NOT? This is Life and Death Stuff for All of Us. More Than Ever, People Have Got To Look to Trustworthhy News Reportage for Answers and for Understanding.
For people that wren’s around during the First Gulf War, WHEN YOU BECOME VERY FAMOUS, How Was It Different? IT Made CNN, It Made You. WHAT WAS SO REVOLATIONMY About the COVERAGE HAPPENING AT THE TIME?
IT WAS 1990 AND THEN The WINTER OF 1991.ing Were Were in Saudi Arabia. And we have the Latest up-to-Date Satellite Technology so that we could Uplink Our Cameras and Video Decks to London and New York and Feed Our Signal Out. We Were Being Heavily Censored by the Government – United States and Saudi Arabia Were Keeping Us 200 Miles from The Front Line, The Front Line Being Kuwait, WHICH HADDEM HADAM HADA SADEEDEDEDEDEDEDEDEDEDEDEDEDEDEDEDEDEDEDEDEDEDEDEDEDEDE
But Very Shortly Into the Air War, Saddam Hussein Began Launching Scud Missils, Basically Soupd-Up Soviet Missils, The Jalopies of Rocket Warfare. But they CARRY A 2000-POUND WARHHEAD. Soy were dangeros. And He Started Firing Them at Israel and Saudi Arabia, Including Right on Our Location at Air Base in Dhahran in Saudi Arabia, Which Was Protected by the FIRST Generations.
So Literally Who We Were Live One Night Covering The Aircraft Taking Off from The Air Base to Go Bomb Iraqi Positions in Kuwait to Start The War That Wound Take. Rockets Taking Off Near US and THEN INTERCEPTING, Buting NOT Destroying, Incoming Scud Missils. We Were Going Live for NBC Into the Halftime of the AFC Final NFL GAME. And in the Third Quarter, The Bills Were 30 Points Ahead, One of the trees Attacks Took Place. SO 55 Million Americans Were Watching the Football Game, and Suddenly It Cut to Us. It was just a story that literally fell on our heads.
We Were Actulaly 200 Miles from The Real Story, and I Remember Our Colleague, Bob Simon of CBS News, He And His Crew, Rather than Remaining in Dhahran, Broke The Rukes An ACTULY CAPPE BY IRAQI FORCES. We Ran A Clip of Bob Saying, “Our Job Is To Get The Story, and Their Job Is Trying To Stop Us. Let’s See See Who Wins.” That washa recemination. They Were Eventually Released, They Survived, But It Was A Very Rough Go For them.
I Know this Nickname Has Followed You Everywhere, But Wen Did People Start Calling You The “Scud Stud?” How did that Change your Life?
I Think It Was Young Producer Working in Intake at the NBC Station in San Francisco. Just Blurted It Out One Night.
On the air?
No, Internally, Whoy Were Taking A Feed From New York Into San Francisco. But People Just Started Repeating It Internally, and The Next Thing It Got Out Out [into public usage]. It was the kind of graveyard Humor that Occurs During War, and we all thorough it was a laugh when we have were reporting the war. But The Nickname Wasn’s Anything that We Zeroed in on. But the audience reaction to original And so i was able to talk about the censorship that we were experience. I Got to Host Hourlong News Specials for NBC. But None of US Took [the nicknames] Seriously.
DID YOU FEEL LIKE YOU WERE BEING OBJECTIFIED OR DID IT FOLLOW YOU AROUND AFTER The War and Annoy You?
The only time that it became an ane an incle was wen somebody [called me Scud Stud] Out of Jealoousy or Spite. You have to let that roll off your back.