20181019

NEWS

In December 2009, Diane Sawyer succeeded Charles Gibson as anchor of ABC's 'World News Tonight'. At the time, 'The Seattle Times' noted, "Evening news viewership habits tend to be steady, except in times of transition. ABC has been through several anchor transitions since 2005." Following the death of Peter Jennings, ABC News tried the male-female anchor team of Elizabeth Vargas and Bob Woodruff. Then in 2006, Charles Gibson took over as the evening broadcast's sole anchor.

According to Nielsen Media Research, at the time, the total viewership for the "22 minutes of current events" were "aggregating about 22 million viewers." Diane Sawyer was "the face of ABC News" until August 2014. Diane's first day was "kept deliberately low-key." However the network flagship evening newscast did make minor changes such as the "first update of on-air graphics in five years."

'Broadcasting & Cable' website observed, "Getting the anchor post on one of these three networks is still the television industry equivalent of being appointed to the Supreme Court. When events send Americans to their television sets, they are not simply looking for information; they are looking for a steady voice and an authoritative presence."

Based on the Pew Research Center survey, Marisa Guthrie reported that while network TV evening newscasts skewed toward an older audience, more respondents age 18-29 (some 83%) acknowledged the importance of not losing the 6:30pm newscast than did the 60-plus crowd (74%). "The evening news costs millions to mount, and has a newsgathering footprint that spans national and international outposts."

Speaking to the BBC in 2001, Peter Jennings made the comment, "One of the things that needs to be essentially understood about the United States is that we have more information available to the public than I think any other nation on earth, whether it's on television, radio, in our vast number of newspapers and magazines - opinion of every imaginable position can be read and seen and absorbed here (in the US). I don't think that television always does the absolute best, most sophisticated job of covering the world - we would like to have more time to do so. But I think that to suggest that the news in America is dumbed down is somewhat ill-informed."

In 1999, Peter Jennings told the University of California, "The sad thing about being an anchor is I no longer get to be a reporter. If it was raining in London, I went to Africa looking for a story."

BBC News, 2006: Yugoslavia was first formed as a kingdom in 1918 and then recreated as a Socialist state in 1945 after the Axis powers were defeated in World War II. The constitution established six constituent republics in the federation: Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Slovenia. Serbia also had two autonomous provinces: Kosovo and Vojvodina.

"By 1992 the Yugoslav Federation was falling apart. Nationalism had once again replaced communism as the dominant force in the Balkans. Slovenia and then Croatia were the first to break away, but only at the cost of renewed conflict with Serbia. The war in Croatia led to hundreds of thousands of refugees and reawakened memories of the brutality of the 1940s. By 1992 a further conflict had broken out in Bosnia, which had also declared independence. The Serbs who lived there were determined to remain within Yugoslavia and to help build a greater Serbia."

'The Los Angeles Times', March 1993: When Peter Jennings told ABC News executives several months ago that he wanted to cover the war in the former Yugoslavia, they were reluctant to let their high-profile anchor go. Nine journalists were killed there last year (in 1992), according to a report by the Committee to Protect Journalists - including ABC's own David Kaplan, a producer.

Paul Friedman, executive vice president of ABC News told 'The Los Angeles Times', "Obviously, we are concerned about the safety of all of our journalists, but Peter has a particular role at the network. But Peter desperately wanted to go. Finally, we didn't see any sense in throwing ourselves in front of this train that was coming at us. So we suggested that he just go over there, without any big announcement that he was going or coming back."

'The Los Angeles Times' continued, "Traveling in two armored vehicles that were borrowed from the British Broadcasting Corp., Jennings, his producer and crew were stopped one day by Bosnian government soldiers in the countryside." Peter Jennings recounted, "We jumped out of the truck. These soldiers were waving guns at us, saying, 'Get out of here, BBC.' But we said, 'No, excuse me, we're ABC.' Thankfully, they remembered ABC from the (1984 Winter) Olympics. I was scared to death, with the snipers and the shelling, as we traveled through Bosnia, Herzegovina and other countries. But you know, everybody in Sarajevo is in danger all the time."

'The Los Angeles Times' continued, "During his 12-day trip in January (1993), Jennings filed a number of reports on the war and daily living conditions for 'World News Tonight'. (On March 18, 1993), he anchors a one-hour documentary, 'The Land of the Demons', that he says is designed to 'try to explain what's going on there, why it's going on and what might be the consequences if the United States got involved.' The program explores the history and reasons for the hatred between the Serbians, Muslims and others, with reporting and interviews by Jennings, national security correspondent John McWethy and diplomatic correspondent Barrie Dunsmore.

"In a set similar to one that was built for ABC's coverage of the Persian Gulf War, Jennings will walk around a huge map of the region to discuss the war and its roots. In an era of cutbacks in foreign-news bureaus among the broadcast networks and what seems at times to be foreign policy dictated by the pictures seen on American TV, from Somalia to the Persian Gulf War, the network anchors are well aware that their presence adds importance to a story."

Peter Jennings added, "I went to Sarajevo - and ABC has had reporters there - because people are being killed there, and the United States may or may not be able to do something about it. I don't think the word Holocaust should be used loosely, but there is a massacre going on there. I don't believe that the press should look back on this war and say that we as journalists did not give it enough attention." 

Peter Jennings also told reporter Jane Hall he disagreed with the notion that television was dictating US foreign policy, "The United States government, for example, has had a policy in the Sudan, although the government in Sudan has not allowed TV crews there. But if the presence of the anchor does lend some attention to a story, why not go someplace where there hasn't been as much attention?

"The networks have never been able to cover every spot on the globe. You have to make editorial decisions to cover those places, events and issues that you think are most important to Americans' lives and American interests. I think people in this country care more about foreign news and their place in the world than they're given credit for."

As an anchor, Peter Jennings told the University of California, "I have the power to put things on the agenda. During this trip to Berkeley, I've already come up with six or seven stories ideas to take back. The evening news is much better than before. Access to technology, specialists and scholars has improved the information we are able give audiences. As long as the evening news delivers good content, there will always be a place for it. However, there is a drive in the networks to move it around on the schedule to make it more accessible."

Blog Archive