Peter Jennings: Newsman on the Heartland

An insightful talk with the ABC News anchor about the values he aspires to, and the excesses that dismay him.

Identity and Ideals

ABC news offered Peter Jennings a job in the United States when the Canadian was all of 24. And he said no. He felt intimidated, partly because he was a 10th grade dropout. But six months later he ratcheted up his courage and began his American journey. As the exacting editor and polished anchor of World News Tonight, this immigrant who is not a U.S. citizen has a huge impact on how we see our nation. And his influence will only grow with his book In Search of America. In this exclusive interview, he candidly describes the American values he aspires to live by -- and the excesses that dismay him.

RD: Your friend Alan Pakula, the late movie director, described you as an innocent. What did he mean?
Jennings: I think he meant I have no guile. That, in the main, I take people at their word. That I tend to see the best in people and am surprised when they have other agendas. And, though he was too kind to say it, that I am not particularly sophisticated, though some people may think I have a sophisticated demeanor.

RD: Have you become more idealistic, or less so?
Jennings: I used to think I didn't have a cynical bone in my body. That is no longer true. Both government and, more recently, business have added to my cynicism. The power of lobbying interests on Capitol Hill has reached a point of profound concern. And over the past several years, I have detected that people feel much more distant from their government than I think is healthy in a democratic society. If people are not interested in government, then government is likely to do a lot that will make people sorry.

RD: For example?
Jennings: There is still no consensus on what should be done about prescription drugs for seniors. It has become politicized -- an issue for pandering and posturing. There also has not been enough serious debate about whether the country should go to war against Saddam Hussein in Iraq. And there is an inclination among some in government to talk about acting in the name of the people while not being conscious enough of the people.

RD: What is the press's role in these debates?
Jennings: I believe commercial television news is a public service. Our job is to keep our eyes and ears open on behalf of the public. Whether it's National Public Radio or the Public Broadcasting Service or ABC, we all should conduct ourselves that way.

RD: Who taught you that?
Jennings: My father. He was a very prominent radio broadcaster and later an executive of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, which was independent but largely financed by the government. One of my first jobs at the CBC was going to work at an ungodly two o'clock in the morning to broadcast to the Eskimos.

RD: But that was hardly your first CBC experience. You hosted a children's show at nine.
Jennings: Only briefly. My father returned from a trip and learned I was on the air. He was angry. He did not believe in nepotism, and he certainly didn't believe his son should be getting paid for something that gave him so much pleasure [laughing].

RD: Let's talk about your schooling. Why did you flunk out in 10th grade?
Jennings: I think it was pure boredom. I loved girls [smiling]. I loved comic books. And for reasons I don't understand, I was pretty lazy.

RD: What did your parents say?
Jennings: They were very disappointed in me, but not angry -- maybe not angry enough, maybe not insistent enough. I know that I did not apply myself until I was getting a paycheck, first as a teller in a bank, and then in broadcasting.

RD: Why did you reject ABC's initial offer to work in the States?
Jennings: The job was pretty intimidating for a guy like me in a tiny city in Canada. I thought, What if I screw up? What if I fail? My father was fairly neutral about my decision. He had been offered a job by NBC during the Depression. He got on the train in Toronto after a great booze-out, and got thrown off the train by a U.S. official at the border who said: "You're coming to take a job that could be done by an American? Not a chance."

RD: When you accepted the job six months later, did you have a stiff drink before you headed to the States?
Jennings: No [laughing]. But I remember going to get my visa and an official asking me all those proverbial questions, including: "Do you intend to make your living by prostitution?" I said, "Well, I don't know. I'm going into broadcasting."

RD: And that was the beginning of your career here that some 40 years later led to your current effort, In Search of America. What is the premise of the book?
Jennings: My coauthor, Todd Brewster, and I decided to look at the founders' original notions about what this country might become, and trace those ideals 225 years later.

RD: What did you learn?
Jennings: That the foundations laid by those mostly aristocratic and white men still form the essence of the American identity. Americans do not form a race, in the way that the Germans or the Japanese do; they form a people, united around a set of ideas and ideals. And, as the founders imagined it, America is a nation always in the act of becoming, often falling short of its ambitions, yet always ready to resume them.

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