Peter Jennings, the Canadian native who succeeded on his second try to become ABC News’ main news anchor — and the last major “big three” permanent network anchor who came to prominence during the print-media-influenced 20th century — is dead.
The culprit: the lung cancer that he had courageously announced on the air four months ago — leading him to choose to leave his ABC post to try and combat this most brutal form of cancer with chemo and other therapies.
Like the other anchors, Jennings, 67, took his lumps in some political quarters at times but what defined him throughout his career was one word: class. CNN reports:
At a time when all three major broadcast networks saw their evening news anchor spots change hands in less than a year, Jennings’ departure was a surprise. Both NBC’s Tom Brokaw and CBS’ Dan Rather announced their plans well in advance, but Jennings’ illness forced a quick decision.
Jennings, a native Canadian who became a U.S. citizen in 2003, said he would continue to host “World News Tonight” when possible. Since the announcement, ABC News’ Charles Gibson and Elizabeth Vargas have filled in for him as temporary anchors.
But he said he was determined to fight the disease, citing National Cancer Institute statistics that nearly 10 million Americans are living with cancer. “I have a lot to learn from them, and ‘living’ is the key word,” he said.
Since April 5, when Jennings announced his diagnosis on the news program, he kept his public comments positive. Even during the initial announcement, he said he would be undergoing chemotherapy and joked about losing his hair.
“I wonder if other men and women ask their doctors right away, ‘OK, doc, when does the hair go?'” said the immaculately dressed and coifed Jennings.
He acknowledged being a smoker until about 20 years ago, and said he “was weak, and I smoked over 9/11.”
In an April 29 letter posted on the ABC News’ site, Jennings said he had been “spoiled rotten” by well-wishers and added, “I assume there are a few others out there who, like me, are going with the flow until the day gets better.”
Since he began anchoring the program in 1983, Jennings won numerous awards, including a National Headline Award and a George Foster Peabody award. He also won 16 Emmys, according to the ABC News Web site.
Asked how it felt after anchoring ABC’s evening news program for 20 years, Jennings told CNN’s Larry King on Sept. 8, 2003, “Seems like yesterday; seems like forever — all at the same time.”
The public got a glimpse of a wan Jennings during his final broadcast (see photo above), but throughout his career Jennings was arguably the most dashing of all the anchors (see photo to the right) and seemingly the least excitable.
USA Today notes:
With Tom Brokaw and Dan Rather, Jennings was part of a triumvirate that dominated network news for more than two decades, through the birth of cable news and the Internet. His smooth delivery and years of international reporting experience made Jennings particularly popular among urban dwellers.
Jennings was the face of ABC News whenever a big story broke. He logged more than 60 hours on the air during the week of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, offering a soothing sense of continuity during a troubled time.
“There are a lot of people who think our job is to reassure the public every night that their home, their community and their nation is safe,” he told author Jeff Alan. “I don’t subscribe to that at all. I subscribe to leaving people with essentially — sorry it’s a cliche — a rough draft of history. Some days it’s reassuring, some days it’s absolutely destructive.”
ABC News has an extensive story and detailed bio of Jennings. It also has THIS MESSAGE BOARD where you can leave your thoughts.
On a personal note, I recall full well Jennings’ early debut as an ABC anchor — his first attempt where, years later, he would say that perhaps it had not been his time.
Just one year after joining ABC News, the young, suave newsman was the anchor of “Peter Jennings with the News” — which lasted for one year. I remember that Jennings was NOT really bad and there was a comfort zone watching him read the news. Yet, he clearly lacked the depth of his competitors on ABC and CBS (Walter “Old Ironpants” Cronkite was still going strong at CBS and NBC had Chet Huntley and David Brinkley).
So what did Jennings do? This high school drop out worked hard and became a seasoned REPORTER — someone who not only could READ the news, but knew how to put stories together. As ABC notes:
He established the first American television news bureau in the Arab world in 1968 when he served as ABC News’ bureau chief for Beirut, Lebanon, a position he held for seven years. He helped put ABC News on the map in 1972 with his coverage of the Summer Olympics in Munich, when Arab terrorists took Israeli athletes hostage.
In 1975, Jennings moved to Washington to become the news anchor of ABC’s morning program “A.M. America”. After a short stint in the mornings, Jennings returned overseas to Rome where he stayed before moving to London to become ABC’s Chief Foreign Correspondent. In 1978 he was named the foreign desk anchor for “World News Tonight.” He co-anchored the program with Frank Reynolds in Washington, D.C., and Max Robinson in Chicago until 1983.
Jennings was named anchor and senior editor of “World News Tonight” in 1983. In his more than 20 years in the position he was honored with almost every major award given to television journalists.
His extensive domestic and overseas reporting experience was evident in “World News Tonight’s” coverage of major crises. He reported from all 50 states and locations around the globe. During the 1991 Gulf War and the 2003 War in Iraq, his knowledge of Middle Eastern affairs brought invaluable perspective to ABC News’ coverage of the war in Iraq and the drug trade in Central and South America. The series also tackled important domestic issues such as gun control policy, the politics of abortion, the crisis in funding for the arts and a highly praised chronicle of the accused bombers of Oklahoma City. “Peter Jennings Reporting” earned numerous awards, including the 2004 Edward R. Morrow award for best documentary for “The Kennedy Assassination — Beyond Conspiracy.”
The bottom line is that Jennings wasn’t quite the person who came up from the news wires like Cronkite or a local paper and local stations like Dan Rather. But he was very much an example of a knowledgeable NEWSMAN rising to the top of his game.
And although he took some hits from people who’d read something into his tone of voice every so often (as all newspeople do)and came under fire for some of his comments on Palestinians and Israel he was widely considered to be a class act. A JOURNALIST — not just a news reader or an expensive suit with a hairdo.
Cable and broadcast journalism are now peppered with people who have used journalism with opinion or big doses of personality to become well known. What’s missing in many of them: a nuts-and-bolts-knowledge of how to put a story together, a story’s key elements and experience in actually doing stories.
Jennings rose to and stayed at the top via hard WORK, persistence — and class.
He made it look easy.
And it wasn’t.
MORE RELATED READING
Museum of Broadcasting bio of Jennings
WHO2 Updated Bio
Wikipedia on Jennings
Jennings Under Fire over Palestinian coverage
Jennings Records The New Milennium
Jennings Goes Back To The Bible
Jennings Announcement Reminder Of Lung Cancer’s Deadliness
WEBLOGS COMMENTING INCLUDE:
James Joyner
Secure Liberty
Ramblings Journal
Crooks And Liars (a post plus THIS VIDEO of his announcing his illness.)
The Political Teen (a post plus THIS VIDEO of MSNBC tribute)
Michelle Malkin
The Talking Dog
Captain Ed
Centerfield’s Rick Heller
Wizbang
La Shawn Barber
skippy’s cookie jill
Protein Wisdom
Orin Kerr
Baldilocks
Daily Kos
Pennywit
TalkLeft
Sister Toldjah
(Travel constraints LIMIT the extent of our roundup on this today. Note that most weblogs are commenting on this. To find out more, we encourage you to explore our categorized blogroll plus any trackbacks on this post)
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.