Peter Jennings and Kayce Freed by Jemal Countess/WireImage.com
It's been more than two years since ABC News anchor Peter Jennings succumbed to lung cancer. Yet his presence in TV news was so powerful, it's hard not to expect him to show up when a big story breaks. Within two days after Jennings died on August 7, 2005, the news division that he dominated went to work interviewing his friends and colleagues. Those voices have been collected in a new book from PublicAffairs called Peter Jennings: A Reporter's Life. It brings back memories of Jennings' warmth, dedication and even his ability to stress out coworkers with his intensity. Kayce Freed Jennings is now a partner in the Documentary Group, which evolved out of her late husband's production company. She recently shared her thoughts about Jennings with the Biz.TVGuide.com: It's been more than two years since you lost Peter. I think people want to know how you've been doing.Freed Jennings: My life is good. He left me with a lot of good things. He's still with me all the time. I hope and assume...
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Princess Diana courtesy NBC
August 31 will mark 10 years since Princess Diana of Wales died in a high-speed car crash in Paris. For weeks it was a major saga that consumed television news. Here's how some of the journalists who covered it remember the shocking tragedy.Piers Morgan of America's Got Talent who was then the editor of England’s Daily Mirror: I went out to dinner on the night she died. I got a call about 1 am U.K. time saying her car had been in an accident and that Dodi Fayed was hurt and Diana was OK. Then I got a call saying Dodi was dead. By then I realized this was a huge international news story. So I went to my office at the Daily Mirror, we marshalled our team, and by 3:30 or 4 am we had 200 journalists in the newsroom. At 4 am I got a call from one of our journalists who was with British royal secretary Robin Cook, who had heard from the French ambassador that Diana was dead. I remember sitting back in my chair feeling a mixture of emotions. On a professional level, I thought this was...
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CBS, fueled by a trio of wins for 60 Minutes, and PBS led the pack at Monday night's News & Documentary Emmy Awards, taking home five statues each. Also of note: ABC's Iraq: Where Things Stand series, hosted by Peter Jennings just 71 days before he revealed that he had lung cancer, was honored with a pair of Emmys.... This weekend, Fox News Sunday enjoyed its highest ratings since the December 2003 capture of Saddam Hussein, thanks to the tense face-off between Chris Wallace and former president Clinton.... NBC Nightly News reclaimed its No. 1 title last week, ending Katie Couric's two-week streak.
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The National Constitution Center of Philadelphia has earmarked part of a $6.4 million grant to establish a journalism institute named after Peter Jennings. His widow, Kayce Freed Jennings, says in a statement that the late ABC News veteran had an "increasing admiration for the Constitution and a fascination with the men who created it" — and even carried a frayed copy of it in his back pocket.
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The block of West 66th Street sandwiched between Columbus Avenue and Central Park was renamed Peter Jennings Way on Tuesday, in honor of the longtime World News Tonight anchor, who died of lung cancer in August. Jennings not only worked in the neighborhood during his ABC News career, he also lived nearby.
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Elizabeth Vargas and Bob Woodruff, ABC News
This week Elizabeth Vargas and Bob Woodruff made their debut as coanchors of ABC World News Tonight, becoming the permanent successors to the late Peter Jennings. The pairing has some longtime TV writers recalling the rough road of past evening-news-anchor twosomes, such as Harry Reasoner and Barbara Walters, and Dan Rather and Connie Chung. But executive producer Jonathan Banner told the Biz that his duo won't just be equally dividing 22 minutes of news every night. Here he shares his thoughts about the past year and what's ahead for WNT.
TVGuide.com: Are you tired of the comparisons to other news-anchor duos?Jonathan Banner: I don't think they're appropriate. In almost every other occurrence, the coanchor was brought in under very different circumstances. The idea of taking two people and having them anchor a broadcast and do the work of two people on that broadcast is something d
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