Longtime ABC News Anchor Peter Jennings Dies Top Journalist for More than Two Decades

Peter Jennings

New York, NY – Veteran broadcast journalist Peter Jennings, best known as the longtime anchor of ABC’s World News Tonight, died Sunday at his New York City home. The award-winning, Canadian-born newsman, who on April 5 announced that he had lung cancer, was 67.

In brief taped remarks that evening, Jennings, his voice impaired by an uncharacteristic rasp, told viewers that he intended to return to the anchor desk when his health improved, but he was never able to do so.

In a statement, ABC News President David Westin said, “Peter has been our colleague, our friend and out leader in so many ways. None of us will be the same without him.”

Like his counterparts Dan Rather of CBS and Tom Brokaw of NBC, Jennings, ascended to the anchor chair in the 1980s. The three men were the trusted faces of network news for more than twenty years. Their tenure saw the birth of the internet and development of cable news. Jennings dominated news ratings from the late 1980s well into the ’90s, when Tom Brokaw bested him.

Brokaw, who reflected on Jennings’ life on NBC’s Today show this morning, said he and Jennings “had an instant friendship.” The two first met in 1966 while covering Ronald Reagan’s campaign for California governor. Friend and fellow anchor Ted Koppel described Jennings as a “warm and loving and surprisingly sentimental man.”

While esteemed for his polished, urbane manner, Jennings was an ardent competitor. During ABC’s Good Morning America tribute to Jennings, Dan Rather said, “If Peter was in the area code, I didn't sleep.” Barbara Walters spoke fondly of Jennings’ professionalism, describing how far he would go beyond his call of duty to deliver the most thorough story possible to the public. She said if the were both covering the arrival of a dignitary, for instance, she “would get the name of [that] person, while [Jennings] was the type to get the name of the guy pulling the horse.”

Good Morning America anchor Charles Gibson, who broke the news of Jennings’ death to viewers this morning, noted that Jennings’ involvement with ABC was “considerable right up to the end.” Jennings called in regularly with advice and criticism and, with his celebrated expertise in foreign affairs, was especially key to ABC’s coverage of last month’s terror bombings in London.

Although he began his stint on ABC’s nightly news broadcast in September 1983, Jennings, like Rather and Brokaw, was a career newsman who traveled the globe to report some of the most urgent news stories in history at the site where they unfolded. Although he reported from every major world capital, numerous war zones and all 50 states, Jennings’ finest hour may have been his coverage of a tragedy in his own back yard—the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, when two hijacked airplanes were flown into lower Manhattan’s World Trade Centers. In the ensuing days, a calming Jennings logged more than 60 hours on the air, earning widespread plaudits for his graceful handling of the devastating event.

Born July 29, 1938, in Toronto, Jennings, the son of an executive at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, began his broadcasting career as a child. At nine years old, he had his own radio show, “Peter’s Program.” A go-getter by nature, he dropped out of high school at 17, and by his early twenties was the host of a television dance program. By 24, having segued into news, he was named co-anchor of the national newscast on his father’s competitor network, CTV.

In 1964, Jennings moved to the United States, where he was hired as a correspondent at ABC. Following a brief appointment as host of the 15-minutes newscast Peter Jennings With the News, he quit to become a foreign correspondent for ABC. For more than a decade, he traveled around the world to report on stories from Vietnam to Beirut. From 1978 to 1983, Jennings joined Frank Reynolds and Max Robinson as co-host of ABC’s World News Tonight, during which, as the foreign anchor he lived in and reported from London. He assumed sole anchor duties upon Reynolds’ death in 1983. In 2003, after decades of residence, Jennings proudly became an American citizen.

Over the course of his career, Jennings won fourteen Emmy Awards and two George Foster Peabody Awards, along with numerous other honors. In addition, he authored two books, The Century, which he co-wrote with Todd Brewster, and In Search of America, a companion book for the 1999 ABC news series "The Century."

Jennings, who was divorced three times, is survived by his fourth wife, former news producer Kayce Freed, whom he married in 1997. He is also survived by a sister, as well as two children, Elizabeth and Christopher, from his third wife, Katie Marton, to whom he was married from 1979 to 1993.