Well, I was going to be the first person to post about the death of a television icon on Pleasant Interruption, but unfortunately (or fortunately) I was thwarted, before I could piece together a decent “tribute” to Peter Jennings.
Even though I rarely watched ABC World News Tonight (Dad watched Dan Rather, so I watched), I couldn’t ignore the fact that Jennings was a Canadian born Journalist with an eye for the facts.
He had an incredible career (which I leer at enviously), and a repertoire of experience that many could only dream of having. Even though he dropped out of high school (and later regretting it) he still was able to achieve and maintain a level of professionalism, and journalistic quality that was admired by many of his competitors on the other major networks.
Jennings after some very productive teen years, he went from radio broadcaster to co-anchor of CTV’s late night news. But when he was sent to the United States to report on the Democratic National convention, he caught the attention of ABC, and eventually was swept down south to work.
At the age of 26 Jennings became the head anchor of ABC’s new which was called “Peter Jennings with the News”, competition with the likes of Walter Cronkite (CBS), and David Brinkley (NBC). Unfortunate being inexperienced with American news and culture, presenting them with sort of a Canadian twist, with diction and grammar, He was replaced 3 years later.
After his brief stint as the head anchor he headed overseas, and was the first foreign anchor to open up a news bureau in the Middle East, it was located in Beirut, Lebanon. From there he covered many major news stories, traveled all around the world covering major conflicts and events such as the rise and fall of the Berlin Wall, and more recently the September 11th catastrophe. Eventually Jennings would take the reigns of the ABC news in 1983.
I only have admiration for Jennings, being a Canadian, and a major news broadcaster, which I could only dream of becoming. Dan Rather commented a day after his death, on CBC that Jennings upbringing in Canada, allowed him to have a different perspective inside and outside of the US. Tom Brokaw commented after an emotional conversation with Larry King, that it had “too much emotion, and too little fact”.
This little bit, really got me thinking about the state of media today, it seems that many news shows today, present the news in more of an “Infotainment” stand. For some reason there are many people out there that call the news boring, because its just a bunch of people talking about what has happened, so they being dumbing it down for these people, having flashy lights, big theme songs, more animated, younger, and attractive news anchors, that put emotions and opinions into their news broadcasts. Its like people turn to the news to be entertained, they want a news show that goes along with their values or opinions. Why does the news have to be interesting? Its supposed to tell you what the hell is happening in the world, and if you don’t agree with the news for some strange reason, remind yourself that they are there to tell you what is happening, not what you want to happen. Many of today’s news stations either indirectly, or directly shift your opinions, depending on how the news is told. When you have opinion pieces telling you how to understand a situation, you know something is damn well wrong with that show, and for many, it should be a flag, NOT to take all the information at face value. Sadly there are people that just watch for these flashy shows, and highly opinionated pieces and take everything at face value, thinking that they know everything about the world, when they have never even read a book in their life, or lets go a step further, never seen a colored person in their lives. Its all about the almighty dollar, the more viewers, the more money rolls in, why? Its those evil conglomerations, if any of you were lucky enough to watch SNL in 1997-ish, they had this amazing ‘School House Rock’ parody that was funny, but almost accurate portrayal of how these conglomerates work (If I can find it, I’ll try and get it on the site). News stations of these major networks, such as ABC, CBS, ABC, FOX, and CTV (a Canadian one for kicks) all are examples, of conglomerated media outlets. This degradation of the news in order to achieve higher viewers, has really affected opinion’s of the people who watch these shows.
Compared with shows such as the BBC, and CBC, all publicly owned, are much better to get information from, rather then from news companies. (Even though they still have some Bias, it is less prominent, then the other major stations. And they don’t tell you what stance you should take, they let you make up your own mind.)WOAH! What an amazing concept, except I’m too lazy to actually go out and learn more so I’ll just agree with everything that your saying.
Anyways, I think I left out a lot, cause its late, and I work tomorrow (whipping noises here), but I might get back to this later. But please all of you amazing special Pleasant Interruption readers, don’t let the media control your thoughts and form your opinions, have an open mind, and look to other sources for information, don’t get blinded by the bright lights. (How do you like those apples Nana)
Peter Jennings R.I.P. (This one was for you)
