World News, Last Night
It is remarkable for those of us who were children in the 1970s and '80s, who have virtually no memory of a time before Peter, Tom, and Dan were the network anchors, that the three men, who just a year ago seemed a fixed part of the landscape, always there when you looked for them, even if you didn't look for them often, that today none remains in the job.
Brokaw's departure was the least surprising, because it was long scheduled and planned for and also covered and promoted by NBC like the death of a pope, or at least like the finale of a long-running and well-rated entertainment program, which, at base, it what the event was. Rather's departure was more sudden but not much more shocking — one always suspected that the too-small bathing suit in the too-hot car on the too-long drive home from the beach would some day prove too small and hot, and, when it finally did, the only surprise was that Rather's ultimate end was with more a whimper than a bang.
But Peter Jennings wasn't going anywhere. He was still young — only 67 when he died at home last night of lung cancer, surrounded by family in his Central Park West apartment — and he was still eager and he was absolutely on top of his game. His all-night-long turn-of-the-millennium coverage was a bravura performance, if also a bit of a gimmick. It could also be viewed, though, as endurance training for his amazing September 11 coverage, when he spent 60 hours on air and was unequalled in his calm, graceful, and very human reporting, analysis, and explanation of the nearly inexplicable. He was, as Barbara Walters said on air last night, according to USA Today, the most natural of the anchormen; in times of crisis and breaking news, he could effortlessly keep it all together — his broadcast, the story, himself.
Jennings was an anchor for the blue states. This is not to say that his politics leaned one way or another, or that he somehow provided a friendlier newscast for liberal causes than for conservative ones; we have no idea of his personal views. What we mean is that Jennings showed, as John Kerry couldn't in the last election, that there's a value in being smart and sophisticated. While Brokaw was always the all-American, just-folks, nice guy, Jennings was worldy and urbane and unafraid to be a bit of an intellectual. That seems to be the incorrect mien for success in this country today, but, for those of us actually do appreciate the smart and sophisticated — for New Yorkers, in other words — it was nice to see one of us spend so long on top.
