Appreciation

By James Poniewozik

When PETER JENNINGS told ABC World News Tonight viewers in April that he had lung cancer, he said he had not smoked in about 20 years, except for a while around Sept. 11. "I was weak," he admitted. It didn't show. Jennings, who died four months later at age 67, was at his best after the attacks, reminding Americans of a fact he had devoted his life to: that world news matters. He had become an ABC anchor at just 26, but realizing he was too green for the job, gave it up to be a foreign correspondent, reporting from Vietnam, the Middle East and beyond. When he returned as anchor in 1978, he advocated for more world news coverage even though it was unpopular. It was said at Jennings' death that the age of the "big three" anchors was over. But he was the least typical of the celebrity anchors. You watched Tom Brokaw for warm confidence, Dan Rather for folksy feistiness. But you watched Jennings for the news. That is what his viewers saw in his marathon Sept. 11 coverage--a calm, cool guide who put the story before the persona, who knew that we needed not his emotion but his information, who was anything but weak. --By James Poniewozik