Peter Jennings

Career overview

Peter Charles Archibald Ewart Jennings was a Canadian-born American television journalist born in Toronto, Ontario, on July 29, 1938. He began his broadcasting career at the age of nine as the host of Peter's People, a half-hour Saturday morning radio program for children on CBC Radio. Throughout his professional life, Jennings established himself as a prominent figure in the media industry, eventually becoming a central presence in American evening network news.

From 1983 until his death on August 7, 2005, Jennings served as the sole anchor of ABC World News Tonight. During this period, he was recognized as one of the Big Three news anchormen, a group that also included Tom Brokaw of NBC and Dan Rather of CBS. These three individuals dominated the landscape of American evening network news from the early 1980s until the mid-2000s. Jennings remained in his role until his death from lung cancer at the age of 67, a period that closely followed the retirements of Brokaw in 2004 and Rather in 2005. Over the course of his career, Jennings was credited with 47 appearances in television and film projects.