Remembering Bernard Shaw, 'Scud Stud' Arthur Kent, 3 more intrepid reporters from the first Gulf War

The first Gulf War began 35 years ago, on Jan. 17, 1991, ending on Feb. 28. CNN came of age over those 43 days, changing the way TV news covered wars (MSNBC and  Fox News wouldn't start until 1996). Reporters went from anonymity to household names. They were covering an extraordinary event on live TV, before a worldwide audience.

Here's a look back at five memorable reporters:

BERNARD SHAW

CNN anchor Shaw was in a room at Baghdad's Al Rasheed Hotel when the first bombs began to fall, at 6:45 p.m. ET. Thanks to a device that allowed he and two other reporters to file live dispatches from the room, CNN broke the news of the first major American engagement since Vietnam. (ABC, CBS and NBC had lost their phone hookups.) CNN later got a reluctant Shaw on a conference call with 100 reporters who wanted to know about his favorite books and movies, even his sleep habits. Asked whether the Super Bowl should go ahead, he exploded: "This is the problem with this kind of attention. Bernie Shaw's opinion about whether the Super Bowl should be played doesn't mean a damned thing ... It doesn't mean a damned thing!" He ended his distinguished career at CNN in 2001, and was never asked about the Super Bowl again. Shaw died in 2022.

ARTHUR KENT

Along with most other reporters covering the war, NBC News' Arthur Kent was based in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. Until then, he'd had a solid run as a war correspondent, but renown was coming. As the Iraqis began firing Soviet-designed ballistic Scud missiles at the city, Kent did live stand-ups looking skyward — cool, calm, unflappable, perfect hair — and the "Scud Stud" was born. He recalled in a 2025 interview with the Hollywood Reporter that "a young producer working in intake [raw footage] at the NBC station in San Francisco just blurted it out one night." It stuck, and how. After the war, Kent had a bitter contract dispute with the network, got fired, then sued over breach of contract. He won. After returning to his native Canada, he became a TV host, launched a production company, and is still active at 72 as a reporter.

PETER ARNETT

Most viewers had never seen Arnett, but instead had read him over the decades, as the AP's Pulitzer Prize-winning correspondent based in Vietnam, from 1962 to 1975. On Jan. 17, millions would hear him: "The U.S. planes ... seem intent on hitting specific targets. I hope one of them is not the Al Rasheed Hotel." (Along with Shaw, and John Holliman, he was holed up on the 9th floor.) Colorful and gregarious, Arnett was revered by reporters, despised by military officials. Long after leaving CNN (in 1999), he drew flak for criticizing the U.S. military strategy during an interview in 2003 — on Iraqi state TV, in the midst of the second Gulf War, while he was working for NBC. His TV career pretty much ended with that. Arnett died last year at the age of 91.

JOHN HOLLIMAN

Arnett spoke highly of Holliman, another CNN original hire: "When the bombing started, we immediately lost power, so we thought we wouldn't be able to broadcast but then [he] went to our equipment and just switched out the batteries, and we were able to communicate for several days like that with the hounds of hell falling on our heads." Holliman went on to become CNN's lead correspondent on space exploration (The media center at Florida's Kennedy Space Center is named in his honor.) He died in a head-on collision near his home in Snellville, Ga. in 1998. He was 49.

BOB SIMON

By the start of the war, the Pentagon had forced most reporters into pools, restricting their access to the battlefield. But on Jan. 21, with the war raging, CBS News' chief Middle East correspondent had other ideas. Along with three CBS colleagues, Simon headed to the Iraqi border, hoping to get a ride to the front lines. They were captured by Iraqi forces and spent the next 40 days in prison while Simon's abrupt disappearance was covered obsessively in the media. He later called it "the most searing experience of my life." One of the great correspondents in network news history — who missed the first war in Iraq but covered many others over a 50-year career — was killed in a car crash on the West Side Highway on Feb. 11, 2015.