Canadian-American award-winning news journalist, reporter and respected anchorman for ABC’s “World News Tonight,” Jennings co-authored “The Century” (1998) and “In Search of America” (2002). On December 31, 1999, for 25 hours he anchored a telecast of millennium celebrations around the world earning ABC News a Peabody Award. He won the coveted Edward R. Murrow award for his documentary on the Kennedy assassination, 16 Emmy awards, several Overseas Press Club awards, a Lifetime Achievement award and many others.
From an early age, Jennings was attracted to broadcasting. He credits his dad, a radio announcer and later executive for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, with his ability to observe attentively and describe lucidly what he had witnessed. Young Peter was behind the microphone by the age of ten on a kid’s radio show. A curious if unsuccessful student, he left prep school in favor of radio. He relates that he spent a year “broadcasting to the Eskimos” during one of his first jobs in Canadian radio. From 1961-64, he was parliamentary correspondent and anchorman for Canadian TV.
Tall, handsome and gracious, he got his big break as host of the ABC Evening News on August 3, 1964 at age 26. After three years, he quit, as audiences simply did not accept the voice of authority from a young man who looked as if he were not much older than a teenager. From 1968 to 1975, Jennings learned his trade from the ground up amidst the turbulence of the times. In 1968, he opened the first American television news bureau in the Arab world. For the next several years he served as bureau chief in Lebanon. From this vantage point he was able to gain a first-hand understanding of foreign affairs while he covered major news stories such as the horrifying events at the Munich Olympics in 1972.
In 1975 he moved to Washington, DC and took over as news anchor of ABC’s morning program, “A.M. America.” Two years later, he moved to Rome as Chief Foreign Correspondent for the news channel, moving on to London shortly afterward. Along with Frank Reynolds and Max Robinson, Jennings shared the anchor desk of “World News Tonight” for five years beginning in 1978. He became senior editor and chief anchor of the popular news show in 1983 and shone there for the next 22 years, until his death in 2005. In 1990, his “Peter Jennings Reporting” made its debut, a vehicle for Jennings to explore in-depth special topics such as the life of Jesus, the Oklahoma City bombing and the Kennedy assassination.
With Dan Rather and Tom Brokaw, Jennings was one of the three superstar anchors for the top network news broadcasts. In each day’s work, he reached millions of Americans with his coverage of domestic and international news and analytical reports. His reputation as cool and standoffish was not the whole story. The debonair newsman on occasion turned visibly weepy over heart-tugging stories. Jennings’ producers reportedly had a pre-tape of his sign-offs ready in case Jennings got blubbery at the end of a newscast. In person, Jennings was an amiable, funny, story-teller, thoughtful and urbane.
Jennings’ name could sometimes be found in the gossip section. He wedded four times and divorced three, with several relationships reported during and in-between marriages. After marriages to Valerie Godsoe and the photographer Annie Malouf, he wed writer Kati Marton in 1979 and they had two children, Elizabeth, born in 1980 and Christopher in 1982. His fourth marriage, to Kayce Freed, occurred on December 6, 1997 in Bridgehampton, NY. Jennings became a U.S. citizen in May 2003. He sometimes commented on the perspective that his Canadian roots gave him toward U.S. policies and actions.
A heavy chain-smoker for a good part of his life, Jennings finally quit in the 1980s but said that he had resumed the habit while covering the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. The journalist announced on April 5, 2005 that he had been diagnosed with lung cancer. While he expressed his intention to continue his work as an anchor despite chemotherapy treatments, he did not return to the anchor desk. The ravages of the disease and the treatment caught up with him. He died on August 7, 2005 in Manhattan, a little more than a week after his 67th birthday. “A Reporter’s Life” was published posthumously in late 2007 by his wife and daughter from a former marriage.
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