A huge loss to the news industry...
 

Local news just reported that longtime ABC news anchor Peter Jennings has succumbed to lung cancer. I remember watching him back in the day when he was the ABC News London correspondent. Very sad.

Crossing my fingers now for the safe return of the shuttle early tomorrow morning.

-gb-

Wow, so soon? I was not aware. A sad day indeed.

Yeah, talk about a fixture in American life... I grew up hearing how the world works in his words... all the best to his family.

Sad news. He was a class act and will be missed. My sympathy goes out to all his family and friends.

Wow,

This is SO sad.... It is indeed a great loss to journalism.

Of the three network anchors, Jennings, Rather and Brokaw, Jennings was the only one that was also an executive producer of the newscast. He not only read the news he helped build each night's program. He is one of the main reasons you saw more international news on ABC than the other networks.

I loved his compassion for the stories and his dedication to sharing them with us all.

I hope his family finds solace that his suffering has ended.

Stephanie

He was my favorite! I'll miss him for sure.

Shuttle not coming back until tomorrow now. Everyone cross their fingers.

Mike

I worked for a local ABC affiliate station during the 2000 NH Primary and ABCNEWS was there. There were a few times I got to talk with Peter Jennings in private before a newscast and I must say he was a really nice guy. Also, his ethic was classy and old school. The bigger ABCNEWS got the more important he thought it was to stick to old school journalism.

With the passing of Jennings and retiring of the other two - I do believe that the nightly news broadcasts are over from what we have grown up with. A little known fact? Nightly news makes almost no money...it's a prestige thing for the networks and it gives balence to their other crappy programming. The networks have been waiting for a change and this will allow them to make major changes they've been afraid to make because of the long running formats.

Say goodbye to network news, it's days are numbered....unfortunately. The CNN's and FOX's have taken over from network news and broadcast networks have fully embraced cheap reality programming for good. I'd give network news another 1-2 years max before they're dropped or changed into a lower cost broadcast.

He was not my favorite journalist, but still, this is very sad. As an ex smoker, I know how hard it can be to quit and how close one is to becoming one again. Condolences to his family.

As much as I liked Peter Jennings, and I already said that he was my personal favorite, Network news and the truth have little in common these days. He will be missed more than can be stated, but maybe like some have said, network type news will die, or be change into something better. Neither ABC, NBC, or CBS ever met a story that they couldn't twist to advanced ratings. Some were just better than others.

An honest portrail and both sides of each story, that's all we ask.

Maybe network news will change, but I'm not putting my money on it yet.

Mike

Peter Jennings' passing is, indeed, both a tragedy and a palpable loss for American broadcast journalism, bringing a stark end to what I would call the second generation of that genre.

The pressures on broadcast news for viewership are titanic. If you watch closely you'll note that story selection and presentation style on each of the U.S. cable and free broadcast news networks is greatly weighted around two themes: fear and anger. These operations have built their viewerships not by being truly informative but rather by presenting sensationalized material designed to make you angry (ex: corporate/government corruption, sex scandals, missing/abused children, etc.) or to scare you (ex: nuclear terrorism, impending avian flu pandemics, etc.). They've long known that their regular viewers have rather less critical minds and become addicted to that style.

Certainly ABC has bowed to some of these influences just to stay in the game. But it was Jennings' influence that staved-off most of that style by virtue of the weight of his popularity. He insisted on maintaining direct overseas news sources long after each of his competitors closed all of their overseas news bureaus. (Aside from Middle East war news, Americans get next to no real international news...is it any wonder that we're as globally ignorant as we are?) His style of story selection and presentation was much closer to that the preceding generation of broadcast journalists, specifically Walter Cronkite. In brief he was, in my opinion, as good as most of us are likely to see in broadcast news for a very long time, if ever again. The forces against such a style are just too great for anyone to fight today.

I have not routinely watched television news for a very long time. It's just become too shallow and silly for me. But when I did watch, I watched Peter Jennings. I will miss him and I thank him for his work.

Like Ken, I haven't watched the MSM for quite a while. But when I did, it was Jennings who I found to be the most 'professional'. Couldn't stand Brokaw's ennunciation (sounded like he had marbles in his mouth) and Rather always struck me as an alarmist. Jennings was always cool, calm and collected (at least in comparison)

But as I said, I haven't watched MSM in probably a year or more. Like more and more americans, I pick my news sources off the internet. With Jennings passing, I really do think the 'network anchor approach' is gone for good. What will replace it? Hard to say. But my condolences to his family.

Personally, I would like to see ABC's Charles Gibson get the job. The man is extremely intelligent, has just the right sense of humor, and has a good sense of what questions to ask.

-gb-

My condolences to the family. I'm sooo glad my father made me watch him every night as a kid.

I was surprized to hear he was a high school dropout. 67 is still to young. Damn cigarettes

Really nice retrospective last nite on ABC. (Yeah, I watched a full hour of MSM, and took a shower afterwards.) He was every bit the class act I thought he was.

The old style nightly news anchor format, is really gone now. Charlie Gibson will probably take Peter's place from all I hear. A great guy, but huge shoes to fill.

Rest in peace Peter. You did good.