Peter Charles Archibald Ewart Jennings (July 29, 1938August 7, 2005) was a Canadian-American television journalist, best known for serving as the sole anchor of ABC World News Tonight from 1983 until his death from lung cancer in 2005. Despite dropping out of high school, Jennings transformed himself into one of American television's most prominent journalists.
Jennings started his career early, hosting a Canadian radio show at age 9. He began his professional career with CJOH-TV in Ottawa during its early years, anchoring the local newscasts and hosting the teen dance show Saturday Date on Saturdays. In 1965, ABC News tapped him to anchor its flagship evening news program. Critics and others in the television news business attacked his inexperience, making his job difficult. He became a foreign correspondent in 1968, reporting from the Middle East.
Jennings returned as one of World News Tonight three anchormen in 1978, and he was promoted to sole anchorman in 1983. He was also known for his marathon coverage of breaking news stories, staying on the air for 15 hours or more to anchor the live broadcast of events such as the Gulf War in 1991, the millennium celebrations in 1999–2000, and the September 11 attacks in 2001. In addition to anchoring, he was the host of many ABC News special reports and moderator of several American presidential debates. He was always fascinated with the United States and became an American citizen in 2003.
Along with former television anchors Tom Brokaw of NBC Nightly News and Dan Rather of CBS Evening News, Jennings was one of the "Big Three" news anchormen who dominated American evening network news from the early 1980s to the mid-2000s. Jennings' death closely followed the retirements from anchoring evening news programs of Brokaw in 2004 and Rather in 2005.
Early life and education
Jennings was born on July 29, 1938, in Toronto, Ontario; he and his younger sister Sarah were children of Elizabeth (née Osborne) and Charles Jennings, a prominent radio broadcaster for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). Jennings started his broadcasting career at the age of nine, hosting Peter's People, a half-hour, Saturday morning, CBC Radio show for kids. His father was on a business trip to the Middle East when the show debuted; upon returning, Charles Jennings, who harbored a deep dislike of nepotism, was outraged to learn that the network had put his son on the air.
When Jennings was 11 years old, he began attending Trinity College School in Port Hope, Ontario, where he excelled in sports. After the CBC moved his father to its Ottawa headquarters in the early 1950s, Jennings transferred to Lisgar Collegiate Institute. He struggled academically, and Jennings later surmised that it was out of "pure boredom" that he failed 10th grade and dropped out. "I loved girls," he said. "I loved comic books. And for reasons I don't understand, I was pretty lazy." Jennings then briefly attended Carleton University, where he says he "lasted about 10 minutes" before dropping out. He also attended the University of Ottawa.
Career
Although Jennings dreamed of following in his father's footsteps in broadcasting, his first job was as a bank teller for the Royal Bank of Canada. He had hoped that the company would assign him to its Havana branch; instead, it located him to the small town of Prescott, Ontario, before transferring him to its nearby Brockville branch. During this time, he explored acting by appearing in several amateur musical productions with the Orpheus Musical Theatre Society, including Damn Yankees and South Pacific.
While in Brockville, then 21-year-old Jennings started his rise in broadcasting. In 1959, CFJR, a local radio station, hired him as a member of its news department; many of his stories were picked up by the CBC. By 1961, Jennings had joined the staff of CJOH-TV, then a new television station in Ottawa. When the station launched in March 1961, Jennings was initially an interviewer and co-producer for Vue, a late-night news program. His producers saw a youthful attractiveness in him that resembled that of Dick Clark, and Jennings soon found himself hosting Club Thirteen, a dance show similar to American Bandstand.