In 1991, Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait under orders of President Saddam Hussein and the ensuing Persian Gulf War became a TV news game-changer. Satellite-delivered news, a new technology, allowed viewers to experience the shock and awe of a major international conflict live in their homes for the first time. That war is credited with transforming CNN, which started broadcasting in 1980, into a 24-hour, global news powerhouse. And it launched a number of media stars, not the least of which was Arthur Kent, a handsome Canadian war journalist whose live reports for NBC amid raining Scud missiles earned him the nickname the “Scud Stud.”
Kent, now 71, lives in his home province of Alberta, not far from where he got 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 though I’m in arrears on my dues, the National Press Club in Washington.”
As President Trump mulls having the U.S. 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 U.S. 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 intensity of these conflicts, the intensity of the violence in Ukraine, in Israel, in Gaza, and now between Iran and Israel, and the speed of communication and the politicization of the news. I’m in awe of the work being done. There’s no shortage of reporters out there eager to throw themselves into these stories. I mean, my contemporaries who are still at it — Christiane 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 then the new generation of reporters like Clarissa Ward and Jeremy Diamond at CNN and at the BBC, this young guy, Quentin Somerville. 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 has been a very difficult jurisdiction to penetrate for decades and even more so 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 would you ask of our lawmakers?
The first question I would ask, of course, given the Gulf War, Afghanistan and Iraq as I covered them, is when are these politicians going to wake up to what the best of their generals will tell them? 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 ground, especially if you’re talking about participating with the current government of Israel in an attempted regime change.
I see reporters raising these questions now. So I just think all of us have to be deeply worried. We all remember the circumstances of the launching of the invasion of Iraq in 2003, the way that Colin Powell was abused by some political and intelligence and military personalities into misrepresenting the nature of the threat; the way that both the Bush and the Blair government in the U.K. did violence to the intelligence assessments to create more of a pro-war atmosphere. So we have to be concerned about that.
Christiane was on CNN [yesterday] interviewing the deputy foreign minister of Iran, and he gave a response to the president: “We’ll have no option but to retaliate if the United States attacks us.” Christiane made the point that the vast majority of the people in Iran want freedom. They’re like us. You can’t go to Iran and not help but be struck by the sophistication, the intelligence, the warmth, the humor. As you have covered with this year’s Palme d’Or winner, the artistic skill of filmmaking under those circumstances — these are people who deserve and want freedom.
But is this the time and are these the circumstances where a popular uprising would be successful? That’s the question. So it is extremely nerve wracking to hear that the Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier is being dispatched to the region. Lots of lethal hardware is being poured into the region, and yet there seems to be an absence of answers. That’s where these reporters come in.
People have been steadily moving away from legacy news organizations and relying on X and other social media to get their news. But how do you know what you’re seeing is real or what it’s 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 compete with the legacy media in terms of trustworthiness.
But they are losing audience. Budgets have been slashed. Journalists laid off.
I would say that the crisis of confidence has to be met by journalists, by editors, but also by proprietors and owners. Maybe I’m a voice in the wilderness, but I would encourage any communications and content-centric conglomerate that thinks that they can just dispose of a traditional legacy broadcast news channel or cable news channel to think again, because the enduring value of our legacy media is going to be in the knowledge and the integrity that they bring to deciphering the fakes that are now clouding the horizon and getting to the real facts that matter.
Is Iran close to its breakout point, where it can actually develop 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 trustworthy news reportage for answers and for understanding.
For people that weren’t around during the first Gulf War, when you became very famous, how was it different? It made CNN, it made you. What was so revolutionary about the coverage happening at the time?
It was 1990 and then the winter of 1991. There we were in Saudi Arabia. And we had 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 had been invaded by Saddam Hussein’s army.
But very shortly into the air war, Saddam Hussein began launching Scud missiles, basically souped-up Soviet missiles, the jalopies of rocket warfare. But they could carry a 2000-pound warhead. So they were dangerous. And he started firing them at Israel and Saudi Arabia, including right on our location at the air base in Dhahran in Saudi Arabia, which was protected by the first generation of Patriot anti-ballistic missile systems.
So literally when 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 would take Kuwait back from Iraq, we heard these loud explosions — rockets taking off near us and then intercepting, but not destroying, incoming Scud missiles. 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 these 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 actually 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 rules and actually got into Kuwait and were taken captive 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 who wins.” That was determination. They were eventually released, they survived, but it was a very rough go for them.
I know this nickname has followed you everywhere, but when 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, when they were taking a feed from New York into San Francisco. But people just started repeating it internally, and the next thing it got out [into public usage]. It was the kind of graveyard humor that occurs during war, and we all thought it was a laugh when we were reporting the war. But the nickname wasn’t anything that we zeroed in on. But the audience reaction to our reporting got us on the air more often. And so I was able to talk about the censorship that we were experiencing. 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 issue was when somebody [called me Scud Stud] out of jealousy or spite. You have to let that roll off your back.