Peter Jennings Passes Away

Sad news this morning, American News Anchor Peter Jennings passed away over night. He had lung cancer. I remember seeing his last appearance on TV explaining his situation to the television audience looking pretty good but with a horribly horse throat. My dad too died of lung cancer and I knew right then and there listening to this sickly ABC News anchor it might very well be his last appearance, and so it was.

I have to say I used to watch him everynight. I always watch US News because inevitably CTV gets the same feeds as ABC but they actually cut them shorter in many instances. Seeing the full show meant I'd have a fuller view of the event, and an American interpretation. I could then turn to Canadian news at 11pm and see how we saw the same events. To me this is important. I consider myself lucky to be in Canada and have news feeds direct from other countries. CTV/CBC from English Canada, RDI/TVA from French Canada, BBC from England and TV5 from the French nations of the world... but of course CNN/ABC/NBC and CBS from the US. It gives me a more global view albeit still very Western and first world. Still Jennings and ABC were the best of the best in the US. He came across as credible, intelligent, diplomatic, articulate, kind, inquisitve, sensitve and even poetic. There's no one out there today who could match him. He's a Canadian we could all warm up to. So many of us head to the US for global fame and fortune... he headed there to be a more rounded intelligent human being. It would seem he worked hard to get what he got and in the end probably had one of the most interesting lives anyone on the planet could have in the late 20th and early21st centuries.

Anyways, I'll miss his perspective on everything. It will never be the same watching the news again. I still have Lloyd and that every rising or lowering hairdo which always puts a smile on my face. He's also one of the few great ones left albeit known only in Canada. It seems the world is changing and the old solid structures of the past are moving on. People, including myself, get their news from the Internet now. Seriously, I'd say in most cases I see the news first on this blessed PC before anything then turn to television to see the images.... but like the Air France tragedy in Toronto last week... it still is the one form of media that can "bring the story home". There's little that can match a powerful image and a slightly emotional reporter standing in front of it. Like newspapers it will never disappear but like many reporters said on ABCNews tonight while recanting their memories of Jennings, there will likely never be another great anchor like him ever again. A sad truth... thanks Peter for helping me understand Americans and for bringing me the world from a truely "Canadian" perspective. You did us all proud.