> As someone posted today, moderators are not consistent.
> Most move off-topic posts to the correct board. You solicit
> them. Peter Jennings spent his entire US career in
> television, not radio.
He did news for ABC Radio for some time as well.
> And I question the phrase "his
> newscasts." He did some excellent reporting in the field
> before becoming the principal news reader. He did some
> excellent anchoring during breaking news coverage when he
> had to wing it. But the regular evening newscast was the
> result of the work of writers, editors, and producers who
> put news on a TelePrompter for him to read.
Peter Jennings was also the Senior Editor of the newscast, so he often wrote a lot of the copy. He also reviewed, in advance, nearly every piece, and could easily pick up when a technical fault occured in that he had reviewed it before going on air. He also insisted on coverage on certain stories that the other producers would have never cared about reporting.
> I also question
> your assumption that ABC's broadcast had "some effect on all
> of us." I watched occasionally and ABC put together a
> slick, well-produced package. But I can't say it had an
> effect on me. If World News Tonight had an effect on you,
> please share it.
I think a newscast has an effect on us because the story has an affect on us and we remember how it was covered. I remember watching Frank Reynolds getting furious at his producers the day Reagan was shot when he reported on the death of James Brady, which turned out to be wrong.
I remember watching Peter on 9/11 when I was fiddling with a TV set in a local hospital trying to get news coverage of what was then a plane crash into the WTC. I remember finally getting our ABC affiliate and watching the coverage, and hearing the entire waiting room and staff who had been slowly gathering around the TV gasp when Peter questioned one of the reporters with, "the whole building fell down?" I recall being surprised at how much composure Jennings held during the coverage, until you could hear him getting a bit testy over the whereabouts of George Bush. I didn't see the moment he semi-lost it in discussing a call he had with his children that day, but it was memorialized as part of the coverage honoring him.
The story was always the important thing, but how it was also told became part of my memory as well.
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Edited by dampier on 08/08/05 05:30 PM.</FONT></P>
