Peter Jennings Quotes (22 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

Peter Jennings: 22 quotes20 likes

Famous Peter Jennings Quotes

“I don't think the public realizes how much soul-searching goes on in news organizations about what is the right thing to do.”

Peter Jennings

Criticism "goes with the territory"

“I think sometimes in the establishment that there are a lot of people in America who resent the establishment, who resent the elite universities, who resent the large corporations and with some good reason this year — as we discovered — and who feel and who have felt prior to the advent of this sort of a great involvement of talk radio that they haven't had place to debate or even vent. And so, is Rush a deeply serious analyst and commentator? In some respects. Is he a showman as well? I think the answer is yes. But I'd never argue that he doesn't have place on the menu.”

Peter Jennings

Larry King Interview (8 September 2003)

“I don't think anybody who looks carefully at us thinks that we are a left-wing or a right-wing organization.”

Peter Jennings

Criticism "goes with the territory"

“I was so focused on all of that, that it took me many hours, until my kids called, ironically. My kids both called and just left a little message that they were OK. And I turned around and went — Oh, man that really hit me like a ton of bricks — But most of the time we were spared that agony for the time being.”

Peter Jennings

Larry King Interview (8 September 2003)

“So you train yourself over the years to try and give accounting to the variety… and come to some decent place in the middle. But I'm not a slave to objectivity. I'm never quite sure what it means. And it means different things to different people.”

Peter Jennings

In response to the question "Is it impossible to be totally objective?"
Larry King Interview (8 September 2003)
Context: My dad was part of the pioneers of public broadcasting in Canada. And he always told me the most important thing you can be in your career is fair. So we all start to see a box and hope that we see the box in the same way. But you recognize in time that people see the box or they see traffic accidents in entirely different ways. So you train yourself over the years to try and give accounting to the variety... and come to some decent place in the middle. But I'm not a slave to objectivity. I'm never quite sure what it means. And it means different things to different people.

“You can't cover the Middle East — you can't cover American politics — you can't cover America these days without finding people in one place or another taking exception to what we do. I think it goes with the territory. Keeps me, at least I hope, mindful, always that there's at least one other opinion and sometimes a dozen other opinions. And they all bear accounting for.”

Peter Jennings

Larry King Interview (8 September 2003)
Context: I think no matter what we cover, people tend to see what we cover through their own particular political or personal prisms. I always ask people to be specific what they're talking about. You can't cover the Middle East — you can't cover American politics — you can't cover America these days without finding people in one place or another taking exception to what we do. I think it goes with the territory. Keeps me, at least I hope, mindful, always that there's at least one other opinion and sometimes a dozen other opinions. And they all bear accounting for. But not everybody is right you know because somebody says, "well you did X", and you say "well, maybe X is right in some cases".

Peter Jennings Quotes about thinking

“I think no matter what we cover, people tend to see what we cover through their own particular political or personal prisms.”

Peter Jennings

“You know, I came just as the Cold War was coming to an end. When you think about the events that we've been through, from the fall of the Berlin Wall to, I guess you'd say, 9/11 being the culmination at the end of that — of that scope — what extraordinary changes there have been.”

Peter Jennings

Response to question on what it feels like to have been the ABC News Anchorman for 20 years.
Larry King Interview (8 September 2003)
Context: Seems like yesterday; seems like forever—all at the same time. It's sort of, how do you measure it? Do you measure the fact that I'm 20 years older? No. I think I measure it by the events. You know, I came just as the Cold War was coming to an end. When you think about the events that we've been through, from the fall of the Berlin Wall to, I guess you'd say, 9/11 being the culmination at the end of that — of that scope — what extraordinary changes there have been.

“I'm a little concerned about this notion everybody wants us to be objective," Jennings said.
Jennings said that everyone — even journalists — have points of view through which they filter their perception of the news. It could be race, sex or income. But, he said, reporters are ideally trained to be as objective as possible.
"And when we don't think we can be fully objective, to be fair.”

Peter Jennings

Interview for KETV NewsWatch 7 as quoted in article at The Omaha Channel (19 October 2004)

“There are a lot of people who think our job is to reassure the public every night that their home, their community and their nation is safe. I don't subscribe to that at all. I subscribe to leaving people with essentially — sorry it's a cliche — a rough draft of history. Some days it's reassuring, some days it's absolutely destructive.”

Peter Jennings

Interview in Anchoring America: The Changing Face of Network News (2003) by Jeff Alan

“The truth of the matter is — and I'm always a bit reluctant to say this because people think you're a bit unfeeling. The truth of this, on 9/11, people who — myself and others — were so unbelievably focused on what was happening that we were, for many, many hours, I think, spared the agony of loss.”

Peter Jennings

Larry King Interview (8 September 2003)

“When I came to the states in the mid 1960s — 1964, 1964 — I didn't think I'd be here maybe a couple years, going to have a great experience in the United States and then go back to Canada. Well, here we are 40 years later.”

Peter Jennings

Larry King Interview (8 September 2003)

Peter Jennings Quotes

“On 9/11, those of us who do the jobs that I do, flew without a net for hour and hour and hour after end. And then you hope and pray that you've had the experience to be up to it.”

Peter Jennings

Larry King Interview (8 September 2003)
Context: On 9/11, those of us who do the jobs that I do, flew without a net for hour and hour and hour after end. And then you hope and pray that you've had the experience to be up to it. Because then you're editor, analyst, reporter, correspondent, ringmaster, the whole thing.

“My dad was part of the pioneers of public broadcasting in Canada. And he always told me the most important thing you can be in your career is fair.”

Peter Jennings

“There's a whole industry of conservatives saying, "Ah, it's those damn liberals," and a whole group of liberals saying, "It's all those damn conservatives"”

Peter Jennings

Interview for KETV NewsWatch 7 as quoted at The Omaha Channel http://www.theomahachannel.com/politics/3833789/detail.html (19 October 2004) <br class="br">Context: There's a whole industry of conservatives saying, "Ah, it's those damn liberals," and a whole group of liberals saying, "It's all those damn conservatives"... If you tailor your news viewing, as some people are now doing, so that you only get one point of view, well of course you're going to think somebody else has got a different point of view, and it may be wrong.

“I have never spent a day in my adult life where I didn't learn something”

Peter Jennings

Interview in Saturday Evening Post, quoted by USA Today http://www.usatoday.com/life/television/news/2005-08-07-jennings-dies_x.htm?POE=LIFISVA (7 August 2005) <br class="br">Context: I have never spent a day in my adult life where I didn't learn something, and if there is a born-again quality to me, that's it.

“Seems like yesterday; seems like forever—all at the same time.”

Peter Jennings

“There will be good days and bad, which means that some days I may be cranky and some days really cranky!”

Peter Jennings

Memo to his staff announcing that he had been diagnosed with lung cancer. (April 2005)

“Are we out of step with the administration because we do not comport completely to their political point of view?… So they criticize us for it. It goes with the territory, and if we get a groundswell we begin to look at ourselves.”

Peter Jennings

Criticism "goes with the territory"

“We have been criticized, a little bit to my surprise, by people who think I was not enough pro-war. That is simply not the way I think of this role. This role is designed to question the behavior of government officials on behalf of the public. I think people who have done this and all jobs in journalism have believed that.”

Peter Jennings

Criticism "goes with the territory"

“[President Bush should] quit hiding behind the Secret Service, come out and face the nation and explain his failure to protect the country.”

Peter Jennings

Attributed as an on-air remark (11 September 2001), but fabricated by Lt. Gen. Billy M. Thomas (ret). Discussed and later denied by radio host Rush Limbaugh.
Misattributed

“Good evening. We begin tonight…”

Peter Jennings

His standard lead in line as ABC News anchor.