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August 09, 2005
The professional
As editor of the Concord Monitor, I run into many of the heavyweights of the news business. Except in a few cases, I can’t say I know them or they know me, but our paths cross. Some of them seem to me to be gracious people, some self-absorbed boors – just like the populace at large.
When I heard about Peter Jennings’s death, I immediately recalled my one encounter with him. It happened during the winter of 1991. The first gulf war was several months old, and ABC News decided to check into three or four communities across the country to see how it was playing. Concord was one of them.
ABC brought a crew into the Monitor newsroom and interviewed me at length.
We had reported and published many stories taking the community’s pulse about the war. We had run accounts of local military people in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Iraq and covered the ways their loved ones on the home front were coping. My job as an interview subject was to be a mirror of community opinion. How were the letters to the editor running? Were there peace demonstrators in town? How much traction were they getting? To what extent was the Vietnam War, then still a dark shadow over American military policy, a factor in local people’s thinking?
I enjoyed the interview and, for better or worse, looked forward to seeing myself on television.
The day the segment was supposed to run, Iraq accepted a ceasefire. The war was over. ABC scrapped its local-reaction story. So much for my 37 seconds of fame.
The next morning, Peter Jennings called. He apologized for putting me through the hassle of the interview for a story that never ran. I told him I was in the news business, so I understood. He thanked me and said that when ABC did stories like this one, he was always impressed with how well communities across the country were being served by their local newspapers. He said that if I was ever in New York, I should phone ahead and stop by for a cup coffee.
Of course, I never did, tempted though I was.
I never had more than that first impression of Peter Jennings, but he treated me with the same grace and professionalism that marked his delivery of the news to America’s living rooms.
Posted by Mike Pride at August 9, 2005 06:34 PM
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Comments
This story touched me greatly. What a comfort Peter Jennings was during those moments of national trauma--9/11 comes to mind--when he allowed his own emotions to surface and show viewers that he, too, was one of us.
On a different note, I just looked up your blog site after reading your goosebump-inspiring essay on Jane Kenyon in "Simply Lasting" just now. I'm reviewing this for the Minneapolis Star-Tribune and found your essay to be especially moving somehow, as it allowed readers access to another layer of Kenyon's private world.
Best, Andrea
Posted by: Andrea at August 10, 2005 03:30 PM