Appreciation: Peter Jennings

Newsweek, August, 2005 by Jonathan Alter

The obituaries around the world all had the same basic lead: Peter Jennings of ABC News dies of lung cancer. Jennings himself had a way of getting to the nut of any story. He might have cut to its brutal truth more quickly: "Peter Jennings, a smoker for three and a half decades, was done in on Aug. 7 by a partly self-inflicted wound." For all of his achievements, Jennings's death may prove as influential as his life.

The brief story of Jennings's life is this: Born in Toronto, the son of a well-known Canadian broadcaster, he debuted on the radio at age 9. After dropping out of high school, he went on the air immediately and landed the job of "ABC Evening News" anchor at the preposterous age of 26. He left New York to learn his craft as a foreign correspondent for 15 years...

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