An End to an Era

Tonight while doing one more cruise through the channels to see if there was anything worth watching on TV, I stopped at ABC when I noticed they were doing a retrospective on Peter Jennings. I realized at once that it was a tribute and that Mr. Jennings had died.

For us baby boomers it is an end of an era. The face of news has been changing rapidly in the last decade with more news accessible on so many cable networks, 24/7, around the world and on the internet. For those of us who began with Walter Cronkite and the Huntley-Brinkley Report, we grew up relying on our news anchors to set us straight and tell us the facts about whatever was going on in the world. Audiences did, and were encouraged, to make a personal connection with the news program and news anchor.

These early news broadcasts eventually evolved into younger, hipper, more sophisticated and better looking news anchors Rather, Brokaw and Jennings. The news may have gained an element of entertainment, but for more than 2 decades these three men were the news for many of us.

With the retirement of Brokaw and Rather in November 2004 and March 2005 respectively, the lone anchor and elder statesman was Peter Jennings. It was just April of this year that he announced he would be away battling lung cancer.

So the face of our network news here in the U.S. has changed completely in the last 8 months. Whatever your opinion on the news and new anchors, Peter Jennings worked for the same company, ABC, for 40 years...remarkable for any industry let alone the cut throat world of network news. God speed Mr. Jennings.