On April 5th of 2005, Peter Jennings announced that he was diagnosed
with lung cancer. Little did he know that four months later his life
would be claimed. Peter died at the age of 67 and is survived by his
wife and two children. Peter was the beloved and trusted face of ABC
World News Tonight. He covered many events including but not limited to
building of the Berlin Wall, and the tearing down of it in the 1990’s. President
Bush paid tribute to this great American journalist. The President
praised Jennings’ work, and said that Americans would miss his
reporting. Peter during his time on ABC always maintained a calm steady
image as a news anchor. Even when he was reporting tragic events, he
always seemed to show empathy through his steady voice. President Bush
summed it up so well when he said, “A lot of Americans relied on Peter
Jennings for their news. He became a part of the lives of a lot of
citizens, and he will be missed. My God bless his soul.” Peter
Jennings began his news anchor career at the age of 10. He started on a
Saturday morning radio show that allowed for young talent to
demonstrated their ability. Peter never cared much for formal
education, but did show that he had great desire to learn about
something that he loved.
Peter became the youngest ABC Evening News
anchor at the age of 27. Even with this great honor earned by Peter, he
still was in a very competitive industry. His competition during that
time included the great Walter Cronkite on CBS. Because of such a
competitive environment, Peter was unable to breakthrough to establish
enough ABC news share. In 1968, he left his anchor position to become a
foreign correspondent in Rome. After building a strong reputation for
world-class reporting, he was placed back into news anchoring for Good
Morning America. For his work over the years, Peter Jennings
won many awards. Of these awards the most coveted the Alfred I duPont
Columbia University Award. In 1989, a Time Mirror poll found Jennings
to be the most believable source of news by the public. Peter Jennings
was also named “best anchor” four times by the Washington Journal
Review.