With the Passing of Peter Jennings, all 3 Major Networks Have Lost an Anchor in the Past Year. What effect will this have on our news coverages?

Peter Jennings


The past year has been a tumultuous year for news anchors. Tom Brokaw stepped down. Dan Rather reluctantly did the same. Peter Jennings announced he had lung cancer, and I like many thought that he would return to the broadcast booth, especially given the doctors he could afford. Alas, it was announced earlier tonight that Peter Jennings had died of lung cancer. ABC must have known Peter's days were numbered as they aired a special mini-documentary on their former anchor. He looked even younger than his 67 years. I had a lot of respect for him because he was so young when he first took the anchor chair in his 20's. He will be sadly missed.
So, what does it all mean? Will the new anchors be as conservative? (I'm not talking politics here.) I mean will they show the same etiquette? Will they generalize more often? My guess is that they will be corporate puppets. The former 3 anchors must have seen the corporate censorship or sway or spin that had been building steam the past few years. However, a new anchor has more people he or she may want to please and may bend more without breaking when it comes to reporting the news accurately. Some suggest that CBS is preparing a more exciting format for the news during Bob Schaeffer's interim anchors, one that will use several co-anchors to make the news experience fresh. I hope the nightly news will still dedicate large segments of time on more important stories and not abbreviate like the USA Today or its influence on most of the newspapers in the nation. I would hate for one of the major networks to lean with a political party ala Fox News. That could be dangerous despite the party. There already seems to be too much sloppiness on the news. Why would you show where a president went to hide on 911? Why would you brainstorm a list of things terrorists could do and announce it to the world? on the other hand, why not show the coffins returning from the war or read the names of those who perished in battle like Ted Koppel took flack for? Some stations would not even show that Nightline. News should be reported responsibly (Not giving out gov't secrets ala Geraldo) and as accurately as possible (advertisers should have no effect on news reporting). For our society to settle for anything less is ludicrous.