Peter Jennings diagnosed with lung cancer

[davepeck]

Peter Jennings diagnosed with lung cancer

NEW YORK, April 5 (UPI) -- ABC News anchor Peter Jennings told colleagues and friends in an e-mail Tuesday that he has lung cancer.

"As you all know, this is a challenge," Jennings wrote. "I begin chemotherapy next week. I will continue to do the broadcast. There will be good days and bad, which means that some days I may be cranky and some days really cranky!"

Jennings will have the outpatient therapy in New York, the Houston Chronicle said. Charlie Gibson, Elizabeth Vargas and others will substitute for him as necessary.

"It\'s both Peter\'s and my expectation that he will anchor World News Tonight during the period of treatment to the extent he can do so comfortably; but, we should also expect him to be off the broadcast from time to time, depending on how he feels," said ABC News executive David Westin.

Jennings joined ABC in 1964 and has been sole anchor of the popular newscast since 1983.

Copyright 2005 by United Press International. All Rights Reserved.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/upi/index.php?feed=Science&article=UPI-1-20050405-11510500-bc-us-jennings.xml

[Mamalakabubadaya]

sad to hear about it, seems like cancer is more of a death sentence than a diagnosis. my grandmother just passed away on easter after a long battle with lung cancer. it\'s unfortunate that we can accomplish so much with technology and excel in so many other fields but are still unable to find an actual cure for diseases like this..my condolences to his fam.

[mcajam]

i do a great peter jennings impression... wish the board had audio.......j/k...sad story

[davepeck]

Jennings has just been reported dead on ABC.. no news on the web yet, except this from this morning:

http://www.nationalledger.com/scribe/article_2726142.shtml

Peter Jennings Reportedly Near Death
By CK Rairden
Aug 7, 2005    

Longtime ABC anchor Peter Jennings was diagnosed with lung cancer earlier this year and told ABC viewers in early April that he had the disease.  He has not been able to return to the air on ABC.

Today Michelle Malkin points to several rumors that say his condition may have turned grave.

Michael King

Unconfirmed reports this evening from sources inside ABC News, say that World News Tonight anchor Peter Jennings is close to death.

Jennings announced he had been diagnosed with lung cancer in April, and has not been on the air since. Anchor duties have rotated between several anchors, most notably Good Morning America co-anchor Charles Gibson.

News Blues [subscription] has this message:

ABC alerts some affiliates to prepare for death of Peter Jennings.

TV Newswer at Media Bistro:

Please Pray For Peter Jennings

Let\'s all say an extra prayer for Peter Jennings tonight.

Update: Sunday, 9:59am: NewsBlues has removed its earlier statement, which stated that ABC affiliates were preparing for Jennings\' death. An ABC spokesperson reiterated that this information was incorrect.

[The note is on the web site now at 12:50 EDT]

Update: 11:55pm: "May God bless Peter and give him and his family strength during these very tough times," a TVSpyer says.

None of this appears to be confirmed.  But no matter the politics, prayers for all involved in this very trying time for the Jennings family.

update: ABC has the story:

http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=1015438

ABC NEWS ANCHOR PETER JENNINGS DIES AT 67

Aug. 7 — ABC News Anchor Peter Jennings died today at his home in New York City. He was 67. On April 5, Jennings announced he had been diagnosed with lung cancer.

He is survived by his wife Kayce Freed, his two children, Elizabeth, 25, and Christopher, 23, and his sister Sarah Jennings.

In an announcing Jennings\' death to his ABC colleagues, News President David Westin wrote:

"For four decades, Peter has been our colleague, our friend, and our leader in so many ways. None of us will be the same without him.

"As you all know, Peter learned only this spring that the health problem he\'d been struggling with was lung cancer. With Kayce, he moved straight into an aggressive chemotherapy treatment. He knew that it was an uphill struggle. But he faced it with realism, courage, and a firm hope that he would be one of the fortunate ones. In the end, he was not.

"We will have many opportunities in the coming hours and days to remember Peter for all that he meant to us all. It cannot be overstated or captured in words alone. But for the moment, the finest tribute we can give is to continue to do the work he loved so much and inspired us to do."

Reported World-Shaping Events

As one of America\'s most distinguished journalists, Jennings reported many of the pivotal events that have shaped our world. He was in Berlin in the 1960s when the Berlin Wall was going up, and there in the \'90s when it came down. He covered the civil rights movement in the southern United States during the 1960s, and the struggle for equality in South Africa during the 1970s and \'80s. He was there when the Voting Rights Act was signed in 1965, and on the other side of the world when South Africans voted for the first time. He has worked in every European nation that once was behind the Iron Curtain. He was there when the independent political movement Solidarity was born in a Polish shipyard, and again when Poland\'s communist leaders were forced from power. And he was in Hungary, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Romania and throughout the Soviet Union to record first the repression of communism and then its demise. He was one of the first reporters to go to Vietnam in the 1960s, and went back to the killing fields of Cambodia in the 1980s to remind Americans that, unless they did something, the terror would return.

On December 31, 1999, Jennings anchored ABC\'s Peabody-award winning coverage of Millennium Eve, "ABC 2000." Some 175 million Americans watched the telecast, making it the biggest live global television event ever. "The day belonged to ABC News," wrote The Washington Post, "&with Peter Jennings doing a nearly superhuman job of anchoring." Jennings was the only anchor to appear live for 25 consecutive hours.

Jennings also led ABC\'s coverage of the September 11 attacks and America\'s subsequent war on terrorism. He anchored more than 60 hours that week during the Network\'s longest continuous period of news coverage, and was widely praised for providing a reassuring voice during the time of crisis. TV Guide called him "the center of gravity," while the Washington Post wrote, "Jennings, in his shirt sleeves, did a Herculean job of coverage." The coverage earned ABC News Peabody and duPont awards.

Overseas, and at Home

Jennings joined ABC News on August 3, 1964. He served as the anchor of "Peter Jennings with the News" from 1965 to 1967.

He established the first American television news bureau in the Arab world in 1968 when he served as ABC News\' bureau chief for Beirut, Lebanon, a position he held for seven years. He helped put ABC News on the map in 1972 with his coverage of the Summer Olympics in Munich, when Arab terrorists took Israeli athletes hostage.

In 1975, Jennings moved to Washington to become the news anchor of ABC\'s morning program "A.M. America". After a short stint in the mornings, Jennings returned overseas to Rome where he stayed before moving to London to become ABC\'s Chief Foreign Correspondent. In 1978 he was named the foreign desk anchor for "World News Tonight." He co-anchored the program with Frank Reynolds in Washington, D.C., and Max Robinson in Chicago until 1983.

Jennings was named anchor and senior editor of "World News Tonight" in 1983. In his more than 20 years in the position he was honored with almost every major award given to television journalists.

His extensive domestic and overseas reporting experience was evident in "World News Tonight\'s" coverage of major crises. He reported from all 50 states and locations around the globe. During the 1991 Gulf War and the 2003 War in Iraq, his knowledge of Middle Eastern affairs brought invaluable perspective to ABC News war in Iraq and the drug trade in Central and South America. The series also tackled important domestic issues such as gun control policy, the politics of abortion, the crisis in funding for the arts and a highly praised chronicle of the accused bombers of Oklahoma City. "Peter Jennings Reporting" earned numerous awards, including the 2004 Edward R. Morrow award for best documentary for "The Kennedy Assassination — Beyond Conspiracy."

Jennings also had a particular interest in broadcasting for the next generation. He did numerous live news specials for children on subjects ranging from growing up in the age of AIDS, to prejudice and its effects on our society. After the events of September 11, and again on the anniversary, he anchored a town hall meeting for children and parents entitled, "Answering Children\'s Questions."

Jennings was honored with many awards for news reporting, including 16 Emmys, two George Foster Peabody Awards, several Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Awards and several Overseas Press Club Awards. Most recently, "World News Tonight" was recognized with two consecutive Edward R. Murrow awards for best newscast, based on field reporting done by Jennings on the California wildfires and the transfer of power in Iraq.

Jennings was the author, with Todd Brewster, of the acclaimed New York Times bestseller, "The Century." It featured first-person accounts of the great events of the century. In 1999, he anchored the 12-hour ABC series, "The Century," and ABC\'s series for The History Channel, "America\'s Time." He and Brewster also published "In Search of America," a companion book for the 6-part ABC News series.

[Ant-Man]

Jennings has just been reported dead on ABC

Sad to hear this, I watched this guy for days after 9/11 he unfolded the whole story to the nation....

[Spacey]

just got the news off of my start up page.

shocking...

[SlimPickens]

he was way too young to go.  the older I get, the more the big "C" pisses me off.  talk about killing power.

[Jim Cobb]

Jennings has just been reported dead on ABC

Sad to hear this, I watched this guy for days after 9/11 he unfolded the whole story to the nation....

theres no way in hell even the media knows the "whole story" behind 9/11.

but this is sad.

[SlimPickens]

theres no way in hell even the media knows the "whole story" behind 9/11.

is this just a general conspiracy theory or do you have examples?

[Jim Cobb]

i wish i had examples.  the whole thing stinks to high heaven if you ask me...

it just fits into bush\'s whole agenda way too conveniently.  i dunno, my intuitions just say that theres a whole lot we dont know about it.

[kyndkate]

He was my favorite anchor out of all the major networks.

[SlimPickens]

the whole thing stinks to high heaven if you ask me...

stinks like asbestos raining from the sky.

nytimes.com has a fantastic piece about Jennings.

"Mr. Jennings was conscious of having been imbued, during his Canadian boyhood, with a skepticism about American behavior; at least partly as a result, he often delighted in presenting the opinions of those in the minority, whatever the situation.

And yet he simultaneously carried on an elaborate love affair with America, one that reached its apex in the summer of 2003, when he announced that he had become an American citizen, scoring, he said proudly, 100 percent on his citizenship test.

In a toast around that time that he gave at the new National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, he described his adopted home as "this brash and noble container of dreams, this muse to artists and inventors and entrepreneurs, this beacon of optimism, this dynamo of energy, this trumpet blare of liberty."