WASHINGTON, 9 August 2005 — Peter Jennings, 67, a high school dropout from Canada who hosted ABC’s “World News Tonight” for over twenty years, died from lung cancer Sunday evening in his New York apartment.
Jennings disclosed in April that he had been diagnosed with lung cancer. He said he was a smoker who quit 20 years ago, but resumed when the 9/11 terrorist attacks took place, and later quit again.
In the taped announcement he said he would begin an aggressive treatment of chemotherapy for cancer. The husky-voiced Jennings said: “I will continue to do the broadcast. On good days my voice will not always be like this.” Much to the disappointment of millions of viewers, he never was able to return.
Jennings was the face of ABC News whenever a big story broke, and offered a sense of calm 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 once said.
Despite the five decades he worked in the US, he never completely spoke like a typical American. He was teased for his “Anglicized diction” and his pronunciation — such as “about” which came out of his mouth as A-BOOT — remained a reminder of his Canadian roots.
Jennings had a 41-year career with ABC, having joined the network in 1964, and established the first American television news bureau in the Arab world in 1968 when he served as ABC News’ bureau chief for Beirut, a position he held for seven years.
Many say it was there that he found his “niche.” He traveled to virtually every Arab county and built up a store of knowledge he would draw upon for years. His reporting during the 1973 Israeli-Arab war earned the respect of viewers. He conducted the first television interview with Palestine Liberation Organization Yasser Arafat, and his 1974 profile of Egyptian president Anwar Sadat won him a Peabody award. He was also the first US reporter to interview the Iranian Ayatollah Khomeini, then living in exile near Paris.
His fondness for the Middle East, and his penchant for balanced reporting did not come without a cost. Israeli supporters and conservative media watchdog organizations frequently accused Jennings of liberal bias and a pro-Palestinian bias.
A 2004 commentary in the Columbia Journalism Review, a journalism trade magazine, dismissed criticism that ABC’s newscast was “anti-war,” saying that “despite the pressure to be a cheerleader [regarding the Iraq war] World News tonight with Peter Jennings was more probing during the air than its rivals. The center’s anti-war label is looking like ABC’s red badge of courage.” Tom Shales, a television citric for the Washington Post, praised Jennings for always focusing on solid, and not titillating news: “He has managed to maintain his dignity and his stature even as network news had grown increasingly tabloidian all around him. He has stayed above the fray... it’s the kind of thing a network news division ought to be doing just for the sake of doing it....”
Jennings personal life was often fodder for gossip pages. His matinee-idol looks and fondness for crisply tailored wardrobe often caused people to liken him with James Bond. His three marriages to Valerie Godsoe, Annie Maalouf and Kati Marton ended in divorce. He married his fourth wife, Kayce Freed, a former ABC television producer in 1997. She and his two adult children from his third marriage, survive him.
The passing of Jennings marks the final chapter the era of broadcast anchors. NBC’s Tom Brokaw stepped down in December after 21 years as anchor of “NBC Nightly News” and Dan Rather ended his 24-year career as CBS lead anchor last month, after a discredited report on US President George W. Bush’s military service.
