Goodbye Mr. Jennings

Peter Jennings passed away on Sunday of lung cancer at age 67. There has been much written and said about this giant in broadcast journalism in the last few days, and all of it does Mr. Jennings much better justice than what I can offer here. But I feel it's important for me to note his passing in this blog because of my central concerns here about the failings of the corporate media. Jennings was a very big part of that machinery, but in many instances he was a voice of resistance as well.

I came across an interesting Piece on the Common Dreams site. It contains a compilation of "CyberAlerts" put out by the Media Research Center pertaining to Jennings' coverage of the Iraq war. (I should point out that MRC takes it upon itself to alert its readers to instances of what it perceives to be liberal bias in the media. It's important for me to emphasize the point that bias is everywhere, including in the perception of bias, but it is information and facts that are paramount in journalism. What sets Media Matters apart from such sites is that while it has a "More Clips" section that highlights conservative bias, its main mission is to point out conservative misinformation in the media.) If you read through this selected list of CyberAlerts, you'll see that most of Jennings' "bias" that MRC objected to turned out to be right on the mark.

There's no doubt that the route taken by Jennings in his career contributed to the qualities that set him apart from other anchors and leading broadcasters. Having dropped out of high school, education was a lifelong venture for him. While in his 20's, he was first given the job as ABC's lead news anchor long before he was ready. At that time he was the pretty boy on camera, reminiscent of William Hurt in Broadcast News. Then, he went out into the world, literally. First it was Vietnam, then establishing a permanent news bureau for ABC in Beirut. By the time he became ABC's chief foreign correspondent based in London, he was ready for the number one chair. But his experience of different cultures and his obsessive quest for knowledge made him more questioning and skeptical than his counterparts.

There are many in the Jewish community that are suspicious of his leanings on the Arab-Israeli conflict. I think that needs to be put into context. He was the first full-time correspondent in the Middle East for American television. He spent years living in Beirut, as opposed to other journalists who just parachuted in for the big stories or who were based in Israel. He was immersed in the culture of the region, and the people he interacted with on a daily basis were of that culture. It has also been reported that he was romantically involved at that time with Palestinian activist Hanan Ashrawi. It is impossible for all of those things not to affect one's perspective, and to cause one to be a little more in tune with the other side of the coin. As a result, his coverage of the Arab-Israeli conflicts has been either more even-handed or more pro-Arab, depending on your point of view. I have no doubt that he viewed it as balanced, without regard for moral equivalencies. I don't think there was any evidence of him having been an anti-Semite, as some have suggested. In the big picture, it was important to have him as a somewhat contrarian voice on that issue because his having lived in the region for a long time allowed him to view Arabs as real people and not caricatures. More importantly, he did not automatically buy into the mainstream media storyline on the issue. That same quality was the genesis for the CyberAlerts on Iraq in which he turned out to be right all along. Whether you appreciated where he stood or not, you have to respect the fact that he had the courage to challenge convention. (In the case of Iraq and WMD, better late than never.) In that same vein, he was instrumental in ABC putting greater emphasis on international news than the other networks. He almost singlehandedly took a lead role in reporting on the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia. He understood long before 9/11 what kind of impact events on the other side of the world could have on Americans.

From all that I have heard and read, Peter Jennings was as much a class act off-camera as he was on the air. He didn't take himself too seriously, and didn't bask in the celebrity of his position. But he was the consummate example of the consummate professional. He was the closest thing to a voice of reason on TV news since Walter Cronkite. He left us far too early, and at a time when we needed him most. May he rest in peace. We won't likely see his kind again.