Remembering Peter: “I Can Not Think Of Having A More Rewarding Career”

Part two of Peter Jennings in his own words:

> Atlanta Journal-Constitution, February 8, 2002: “When people really decide they’re going to get pissed off at me, they still, on rare occasions, send me bus money to go home to Canada.” He chuckled. “I always try to give it to a charity of their choice.”

> Minneapolis Star Tribune, May 21, 2002: “I’m not what you call a bleeding heart on television at all. I want to be composed on television. But I’m very emotional in my private life. I’m looser than viewers expect. I think sometimes they’re surprised I don’t have horns.”

> The Oregonian, February 11, 2003: “Do you watch the evening news?,” Jennings asked Peter Ames Carlin. “A lot of the people who write about TV never do.”

> St. Louis Post-Dispatch, February 1, 1989: “I’ve got this nice big office. I look out on this nice sterile building, and if you don’t work at it in this job you can lead a quite elegant, isolated, high-flying, halls-of-power life. Quite frankly, that’s rather boring and not very fulfilling.”

> Boston Globe, July 4, 2001: “Those of us who went into journalism in the ’50s or ’60s, it was sort of a liberal thing to do. Save the world. Conservative voices in the US have not been as present as they might have been and should have been in the media.”

> Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, October 21, 2004: Jennings’ father used to say “You try to be objective, but it’s more important you be fair:” “Objectivity is hard. [As a journalist] you train yourself to put your biases over there on the side, but let’s never pretend we don’t have them.”

> USA Today, March 12, 1996: Jennings’ advice for those who’ve set their sights on anchoring: “Don’t! Lots of people today — younger people who want to get into television news — capitalize the T rather than the N. And because the anchor’s position is much more associated with TV on a daily basis, they’re attracted to that. I now try to explain that the most exciting thing about television news usually is all of the years you spend before becoming an anchorperson, so that when you do become one — if you become one — there’s something to back it up.”

> Rocky Mountain News, May 6, 2004: “I don’t know what the future will bring journalistically. But I’d love to be in charge of my own prime-time newsmagazine — something like 60 Minutes and Prime Time.”

> Sacramento Bee, May 21, 2003: “I’ve seen the world and met the world on ABC’s dime. It’s been fabulous. For a guy who’s had such a limited formal education, I can not think of having had a more rewarding career. I just cannot think of what else I would have done.”