It is against this background that I read with great interest Peter Jennings, A Reporter’s Life. He was a Canadian (who became an American citizen in 2003, just two years before his death). Jennings worked for ABC, spent 25 years as a foreign correspondent, and then returned to anchor ABC News, taking it to first place in a competition of mutual respect with Dan Rather (CBS) and Tom Brokow (NBC). The book traces his career as seen through the comments of a wide range of his contemporaries, including Alan Alda, Bill Clinton, Colin Powell, Diane Sawyer – and Brokow and Rather.
What I found most striking when reading this book is how determined Jennings was that the nightly news broadcasts be used to educate Americans about the world around them. This perspective arose, in part, from his detailed knowledge of such matters after his decades as a foreign correspondent. But it also reflected his belief that developments around the world affected the U.S. and, therefore, that Americans needed to know about these things.
The prevailing view had been that folks wanted to learn about things of immediate interest, such as where you can get liposuction or how to find cheap auto insurance. Jennings fought the head of the network, successfully most of the time, to cover major world issues – often travelling there himself to report on them. He almost single-handedly, for example, brought the death and destruction in Bosnia to the world’s attention. Ratings suffered at times, but often the serious stories he wanted to cover found a receptive audience.
I can think of no better way of closing this short blog than with the words of Peter Jennings: (pp. 235-236)
Our national conversation is very often a shouting match – and too much of it is infected with venom. I’m not naïve and I do not imagine a world in which we all get along. And I do not think we need to single out the right or the left, the talk radio ranters or the angry columnists. To some extent we are all culpable – including the staid center, which if only by its silence is not without responsibility…. Our modern communications systems and other technologies have increased the volume of public argument to an unholy racket. Our national conversation sometimes feels impoverished as a result…. Civility doesn’t just promote decency; it also leads to a fairer exchange of ideas and a greater chance of finding workable solutions to the kinds of problems we face.