Thursday, March 28, 2024
Miles from the Mainstream
D. R. ZUKERMAN, proprietor
Peter Jennings

AUGUST 8, 2005 --

When LPR got this photo of Peter Jennings, last summer outside Central Park's Delacorte Theater, it seemed to
to this writer that Mr. Jennings looked older than he appeared as network anchor ABC News.

Peter Jennings was, after all, a television news presence -- mature, urbane, quite self-assured. It is difficult to imagine Jennings, Canadian-born and a naturalized U.S. citizen, a government official in Washington.

For LPR, however, it not very difficult to imagine him a senior member of the cabinet in London -- foreign minister, even prime minister.

Ted Koppel, of course, was the ABC News correspondent who was born in England, but the Canadian-American Jennings seemed, for this writer, rather more British in style, tone and deed -- if not quite the accented word -- as he brought world news to U.S. viewers.

Peter Jennings, July 13, 2004, outside the Delacorte Theatre.


There is a line from "It's a Wonderful Life," where Peter Bailey tells his son George, "Maybe you were born older [than your brother Harry]." ("The It's A Wonderful Life Book," p. 141, edited by Jeanine Basinger.)

Peter Jennings gave this writer the impression that he was born older than many of his colleagues in broadcast journalism. That's what being an authority
figure comes down to, doesn't, and what is a TV news anchor if not an authority figure?