Anyone else catch the 2 hour documentary on Peter Jennings tonite? I thought they did a great job. The segment on his coverage shortly after 9/11 really moved me. He was who we turned to for some sort of comfort during that time when nothing in the world made sense to us. I think greatness isn't truly appreciated until after its gone. I never thought about it, but ABC was the only station I tuned into for news and I didn't even consider the other two networks. It was just out of the question for me as I found Peter so superior to his competitors. Every day for 20 years on World News, Americans welcomed Peter Jennings into their homes so it is as if we have lost a member of the family. What will his legacy be?
I always thought it was: 1. Tom Brokaw 1a. Peter Jennings 3. Dan Rather ( Nothing to do with his supposed "political leanings" either.. )
Jennings was the one I respected the most. Just his voice alone conveyed a sense of calm and reasoning and he really presented the news in an ideal way, for me. That was also the reason his stunned silence (which rarely happened) when the Towers fell had such a huge impact on me. I'll always remember that.
I watched the doc. very nice tribute ~ I always had similar feelings about Jennings and Brokaw with Rather a distant 3rd. During the 9/11 attacks I got all my news from Jennings and Brokaw. They added a human touch and sincerity that stayed far away from the sensationalism of many of the other newscasts.
I did catch it on TV and honestly, watching this on TV helped replay my own life in front of my eyes. In all likelihood, I am the oldest person that posts on this board and every major world event of my adult life was covered by Peter Jennings. I cannot say that about any other journalist or broadcaster. Jennings covered the Berlin Wall being built and it is an event I remember vividly. He covered the Civil Rights Movement and that was something I was heavily involved in being a Black man from Alabama. He covered Vietnam and of course Vietnam was a big part of my life both as a soldier and later as an avid War protester. Jennings was the Beirut correspondent for ABC when I worked in Israel. He covered both the Munich Olympics and Yom Kippur which obviously were huge news events in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. He covered the plight of the Palestinians when no one in the media gave a damn about them. Seeing the plight of the Palestinian people in Israel and drawing parallels to my background in the segregated South played a role in me converting to Islam. To me at the time, Black and Palestinian were synonymous to a large extent and I'm sure Jennings' coverage of them opened the eyes of many. I returned to the States about the same time Jennings became the London bureau chief. Since then, every event he covered affected me like everyone else. His coverage of the Challenger disaster and September 11th are unparalleled. With respect to Jennings' legacy, in my book, he is probably the best ever simply because he covered almost everything that has affected my life. From a general perspective, I would put him on the 2nd tier by himself. Rather and Brokaw are beneath him. Cronkite, Huntley, and Brinkley are above him. To be fair to Jennings, I don't think anyone could ever topple Cronkite, Huntley, and Brinkley. They were the pioneers of TV news and their images are implanted in the minds of everyone. No one ever covered anything as well as Cronkite on the Kennedy assassination. As far as Huntley and Brinkley as a duo, they were just broadcasting giants. In terms of talent, they will never be matched. I enjoyed Peter Jennings for the last 40 years. His compassion for people and the news will preserve his legacy. He will sorely be missed and whoever replaces him at ABC will have some massive shoes to fill. RIP.
He was a proud Canadian, as I’m sure you know, and in fact there are a lot of Canadian journalists in the US. As Americans do you think that this gave him a more objective or neutral voice on issues? I don’t raise this to brag, although he certainly is someone Canadians are proud of, but it’s a curious thing to me that so many Canadians have become prominent US journalists. Maybe it’s the objective outsider’s eye that’s the reason for it? Other Canadians include: Morley Safer (60 Minutes) Robert McNeil (McNeil Lehrer News Hour) Bob McKeown (Dateline) Arthur Kent (the Scud Stud)
This exact question was asked on the Larry King Live show on Monday night and Barbara Walters, Tom Brokaw and Dan Rathers were the guests that night. They said that it probably did help him coming from Canada to be objective. They made him sound like he questioned everything, he was the most curious person so when he didn't know, he asked and when he did that, it made it seem like he was critical. In actuality, he was just trying to better understand and probe on how we do things. I'm not the most eloquent writer, but that is the jist I got from it. They didn't ask about the other Canadian journalists though.
Interesting. That makes sense. If you grow up in a given culture you probably grow up with certain biases and take certain things for granted. If you come from a different country you will have to consciously learn about a lot of the things the people there take for granted and that will give you a different perspective on them.
I think the anchor is a little outdated myself. We get news before they do, we get more opinions before they do, and we can make up our minds before they even begin to report the story. They served a nice purpose before the internet. But seems like, for me, they are merely an additional piece of entertainment now.
Definitely, and that's a good point. From my experience traveling around the world and dealing with Europeans/Canadians vs. Americans, there is definitely a noticeable difference in their approach to understanding the world around them. What I came to believe was the biggest difference is that on the one side Canadians and Europeans are much more "informed" about world events/politics/history, and tend to have a sense of "we are citizens of the world" approach to world events; this is probably a byproduct of them being much more aware of world events, which is something that's largely lacking in the US, and is largely reflected through our US media coverage of world events, which usually has a US-centric character to it: it's usually how "we" see the world and that's all that matters. Having lived in many places around the world, and dealing with every imaginable nationality, this is just one thing that I have observed as a major difference between your average American and your average European or Canadian; in this sense, Canadians and Europeans are much more 'similar' than either are to Americans.
