In Las Vegas this morning, WNT EP Jon Banner accepted the Distinguished Service Award on behalf of Peter Jennings.
“I miss his passion so much,” Banner told the audience. “He didn’t want to educate his audience so much as to inform them, to give information relevance in their lives. As he once said ‘I only feel hopeful when I am informed.’ I was struck by something Colin Powell said when Peter died: ‘We need more Peters.'”
TVNewser NAB blogger Simon Marks has more after the jump…
Jon Banner, accepting the Distinguished Service Award on behalf of the late
Peter Jennings, thanked the NAB on behalf of Peter, his wife Kayce,
children Lizzie and Chrstopher, and the wider ABC News family.
He showed the audience his “What Would Peter Do?” wristband, and offered
personal recollections that afforded an insight into the late anchor’s
personality.
“In the fall of 1986 Peter started delivering meals to the homeless people
all over New York late at night. He became a regular. When some of his
wealthy friends found out, they asked if they could make a doncation.
‘Sure’ he would say, but only if they would spend a night with him in the
food bank.”
Peter “found people from the farthest corners of the earth and talked to
them about the towns they came from. Whether it was the homeless Turkish
man living under the Brooklyng Bridge or King Abdullah, he was always the
sasme Peter.”
“In June 2005 he was home battling lung cancer. One afterrnoon I had to
leave work early…my daughters were home sick with a bug. The phone rang
that afternoon. It was Peter. He was just calling to make sure everything
was ok.”
“He knew more about the world than the foreign editor, more about the
country than his domestic agenda, and more about words than his chief
writer….Not a single word got on the broadcast without his approval.”
“He would get paid by ABC but knew that he really
worked for the public….’Information and understanding. That’s the
business we are in’ he would say.”
“I miss his passion so much. He didn’t want to educate his audience so
much as to inform them, to give information relevance in their lives. As
he once said ‘I only feel hopeful when I am informed.’ I was struck by
something Colin Powell said when Peter died: ‘We need more Peters.'”
“Peter lived a very full life and his life is full of lessons in this post
9/11, post-Katrina world. We don’t just have to remember, so much as to
work toward what can be.”