… dead as a doornail.
Tonight, we’ve seen the end of the big three… the Big Three networks and definitely the end of the Big Three broadcast news shows, as we knew them. Within a year we’ve lost three anchors that held their posts for decades.
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Peter Jennings never received the respect he deserved. Being a Canadian, his accent, delivery, style, and sensibilities did not always sit well with many Americans.
They were wrong.
Peter was a great anchor. Upon exiting Texas I was reminded of precisely how great an anchor Jennings was, night after night his insight and delivery astounded me on World News Tonight. He was laid back, blunt, personal, and engaging. There was no hard sale, no rhetoric, just solid reporting.
I’ve long respected Peter’s ability to capture the essence of a story. His documentaries for ABC News both impressed and upset me. Most notably “The Search for Jesus” astounded me. Through this and other documentaries he took his audience to the Holy Land and other sites of religious importance. He challenged our beliefs and seemed genuinely concerned with getting to the bottom of faith, truth, and the personhood/godhood of Christ.
Unfortunately, there is little indication that he was a man of faith or had a personal relationship with Christ. Tonight, ABC reported that he really did not believe in absolute truth at all… what was truth for one people group was often much less for another. The sentiments from his family mentioned his having led a good life and done many great things, not once referencing God, faith, afterlife, morality, or sadly, hope. “Peter died with his family around him, without pain and in peace. He knew he’d lived a good life,” his wife and children said in a statement.
And for this I am most sad… an anchor that I’d grown to love and respect is tonight, most likely, spending the first of many evenings in an eternity apart from the love, care and protection of God. I hate to say it, but someone must…..
Tonight, Jenning’s search for Jesus ended. And I fear, God forbid, that Christ turned his back and said ‘Depart from me, I never knew you.’
Oh to God that I am wrong.
Yeah, a lot of people like to criticize him as liberal. But I always thought he just never liked anyone to get off easy — a quality to respect.
I watched him for years as a kid, and yet the first thing I thought of when I heard the news this morning was the time he called the newsroom up at Maryland to talk to our one prof Dave.
But when the person answering the phones did the typical “may I ask who’s calling” no one believed him.
Evidently, he had a great sense of humor, cause when the prof finally got the phone, he said he was laughing.