Dept. of Agenda? What Agenda?

AGAIN via Instapundit, more evidence of media bias and agenda. We all knew about it, but it's refreshing to see journalists talking about it for a change. Bernie Goldberg bore the brunt of being the first to protest publicly, but now we're seeing more.

Anyway, it seems that Dr. Bob Arnot, NBC foreign correspondent, hasn't had his contract renewed, and he's a might perturbed about the stories he's pitched that the network has rejected. And he's got something to say about it.

In a 1,300-word e-mail to NBC News president Neal Shapiro, written in December 2003 and obtained by NYTV, Dr. Arnot called NBC News’ coverage of Iraq biased. He argued that keeping him in Iraq and on NBC could go far in rectifying that. Dr. Arnot told Mr. Shapiro that NBC had alienated the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad since it shot and then aired footage of correspondent Jim Miklaszewski at the scene of the November bombing of the Al Rashid Hotel, in which a C.P.A. staffer was shown injured. That incident, he wrote, "earned the undying enmity of the C.P.A."

"We’ve been at a significant disadvantage given NBC’s reputation in Iraq," Dr. Arnot wrote Mr. Shapiro. He argued that due to his excellent relationships with military and C.P.A. personnel, NBC News could repair its standing with government authorities by airing more of his material.

"I’m uniquely positioned to report the story," he wrote. "NBC Nightly News routinely takes the stories that I shoot and uses the footage, even to lead the broadcast," but "refuses to allow the story to be told by the reporter on the scene."

In other words, he suggested, NBC News did not like putting him on the air.

Dr. Arnot included excerpts from an e-mail from Jim Keelor, president of Liberty Broadcasting, which owns eight NBC stations throughout the South. Mr. Keelor had written NBC, stating that "the networks are pretty much ignoring" the good-news stories in Iraq. "The definition of news would incorporate some of these stories," he wrote. "Hence the Fox News surge."

Much more. Read the whole thing.

I wonder if FOX is looking for a Geraldo replacement?