I was going to make an amendment to my Peter Jennings post, pointing out that I gave short schrift to the fourth anchor, Jim Lehrer. You’d have thought I’d have remembered him, having worked at WETA and then living in the same neighborhood as the News Hour offices for so long. I guess grief got the best of me.
Anyway, my comment was, as many also commented, that it’s the end of an era in journalism. And here’s an example from the Chicago Sun Times:
Coverage of Peter Jennings’ death proved how TV news has changed for the worse during the 22 years he anchored ABC’s “World News Tonight.”
ABC announced his death shortly before 11 p.m. Sunday, and the network and CNN interviewed friends and co-workers through the night. But Fox “News”? At 11:08 p.m., it was milking tragedy with the non-news of Natalee Holloway, who went missing in Aruba 10 weeks ago. At 12:12 a.m., Fox broke this: “TEACHERS GONE WILD!”
On ABC’s “Good Morning America,” a host read a Web posting from a viewer declaring, “I personally have not felt like this since JFK [was killed].” But at 8:25 a.m., Fox was running a round table suggesting a “New York native” “intends” to run against “carpetbagger” Hillary Clinton.
