Peter Jennings

A Reporter's Life

Contributors

By Lynn Sherr

By Kate Darnton

By Kayce Freed Jennings

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Peter Jennings was the sole anchor of ABC’s World News Tonight from 1983 until his death from cancer in 2005. For many Americans, he was the voice and face that gave shape and meaning to every day’s news. But who was Peter Jennings really? In this absorbing biography, readers will get to know Jennings through the memories of his friends, family, competitors, colleagues, and interview subjects. Their stories are full of surprises. Jennings, we learn, was a high school dropout who spent the rest of his life in pursuit of knowledge. He traveled the world in search of stories, a notebook perpetually thrust through his back belt loop. In his front pocket, he carried a miniature copy of the Constitution, a testament to his love for the United States; a Canadian by birth, Jennings acquired American citizenship in 2003.

Peter Jennings was a celebrity, of course — a dashingly handsome and elegant man, famous for his ability to charm women and world leaders alike — but in these pages he is remembered as a loyal friend and a devoted family man, who loved nothing more than to canoe with his kids and listen to jazz with his friends in the Hamptons. Not that he was the relaxing sort. Jennings was a task-master, who ripped other reporters’ pieces to shreds, forcing them to rewrite from the ground up. He was a perfectionist, too, who drove his fellow correspondents crazy with his ad-libbed questions on the air. It was all about standards. Throughout his life, Peter Jennings was driven by a passion to seek the truth and convey that truth accurately, simply, cleanly, and elegantly to his American audience. He was our voice.

On Sale
Dec 10, 2007
Page Count
352 pages
Publisher
PublicAffairs
ISBN-13
9781586486327

Lynn Sherr

About the Author

Broadcast journalist and writer Lynn Sherr was an award-winning correspondent for more than thirty years at ABC News. She is the author of Tall Blondes: A Book About Giraffes; Outside the Box: A Memoir; America the Beautiful: The Stirring True Story Behind Our Nation’s Favorite Song; and Failure is Impossible: Susan B. Anthony in Her Words. She coedited Peter Jennings, A Reporter’s Life. She lives in New York.

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Kate Darnton

About the Author

Kate Darnton is a contributing editor to PublicAffairs, living in Boston, Massachusetts.

Kayce Freed Jennings is executive vice president and co-founder of The Documentary Group, an independent production company. She was married to Peter Jennings from 1997 until his death in 2005.

Lynn Sherr has been an award-winning correspondent with ABC News since 1977.

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