Peter Jennings: A Reporter's Life

New York, N.Y. PublicAffairs, 2007. First Edition [Stated], First Printing [Stated]. Hardcover. xix, [1], 321, [11] pages. Illustrations. Signed by Lynn Sherr and Kayce Jennings on the title page. Includes Introduction by Lynn Sherr. Chapters include A Canadian Childhood; Boy Anchor; The Talking Trench Cot; Roving Anchor; Flying Solo; Making the News; World News Tonight; Enthusiasms; September 11; The Man; Citizen; "I Have Lung Cancer"; Legacy; "Finally, This Evening...". Also includes Acknowledgments by Kayce Freed Jennings; Notes; Chronology of Peter Jennings' Life; Selected Documentaries and News Specials; and Photo Credits. Peter Charles Archibald Ewart Jennings CM (July 29, 1938 – August 7, 2005) was a Canadian-American journalist who served as the sole anchor of ABC World News Tonight from 1983 until his death from lung cancer in 2005. Jennings began his professional career with CJOH-TV in Ottawa, anchoring the local newscasts. In 1965, ABC News tapped him to anchor its flagship evening news program. Critics and others in the television news business attacked his inexperience. He became a foreign correspondent in 1968, reporting from the Middle East. Jennings returned as one of World News Tonight's three anchormen in 1978, and he was promoted to sole anchorman in 1983. He was also known for his marathon coverage of breaking news stories, staying on the air for 15 hours or more to anchor the live broadcast of events such as the Gulf War in 1991, the millennium celebrations in 1999-2000, and the September 11 attacks in 2001. In addition to anchoring, he was the host of many ABC News special reports and moderated several American presidential debates. Derived from a Kirkus review: A warm tribute to the Canadian who anchored ABC’s World News Tonight for 22 years. Based on interviews, this oral history gathers the voices of more than 60 colleagues, friends, family members and others who fondly recall the handsome and charming Jennings (1938–2005). The Toronto-born son of a noted radio broadcaster in Canada, Jennings joined an Ottawa TV station, where his newscasts caught the eye of the struggling ABC network. In 1965, at age 26, he became anchor of the network’s nightly newscast, competing with stalwarts Walter Cronkite at CBS and Huntley and Brinkley at NBC. As recounted here, Jennings’s ABC career was an education in both journalism and American culture that turned the pretty-boy neophyte into a first-rate reporter who worked hard to make complex issues understandable to viewers. Sent from his anchor post into the field, he learned his craft during 15 years as a foreign correspondent in the Middle East and elsewhere, returning as ABC’s nightly anchor in 1983. Darnton (an editor), Kayce Freed Jennings (a documentary producer and Jennings’s wife at the time of his death) and Sherr (an ABC News correspondent) artfully intersperse the journalist’s own words with those of others, from Lauren Bacall to Rudy Giuliani, to create bright, readable vignettes of Jennings covering the Munich Olympics, presidential campaigns, 9/11 and more. Interviewees recall a sweet, down-to-earth man and a broadcaster of elegance and grace who could be a demanding perfectionist, editing and revising copy moments before going on the air and insisting on the simplest, most direct way to tell a story. Readers who watched Jennings faithfully over the years will enjoy behind-the-scenes views of this charismatic news anchor who became, in Cokie Roberts’s words, “the voice of civilization” on television. Jennings not only learned to stop saying “shedule,” he fell in love with America and became a citizen shortly before his death. Evocative glimpses of a sorely missed class act. Condition: Very good / Very good.

Keywords: Peter Jennings; Reporters, ABC World News Tonight, Newscasters, Journalists, Foreign Correspondents, September 11, Citizenship, Presidential Debates, Lauren Bacall, Rudy Giuliani, Gulf War, Lung Cancer, Oral History

ISBN: 9781586485177

[Book #80530]

Price: $100.00