Peter Jennings
Peter Jennings (born July 29, 1938 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada) is the lead anchor for the American evening news program ABC World News Tonight for the ABC network. He is America's second-most watched news anchor, behind NBC's Tom Brokaw, but ahead of CBS News Anchor Dan Rather in the ratings. He became an American citizen in July 2003, but still maintains his Canadian citizenship; as such, Jennings is a dual citizen of the two countries.
Peter Jennings is the son of Charles Jennings, a leading journalist for CBC in Canada. He had dropped out of prepatory school, as well.
On December 31, 1999, 175 million people tuned into at a least a portion of his network's Millennium Eve special ABC 2000.
Jennings replaced Frank Reynolds after his unexpected death. The president of ABC News first chose Tom Brokaw, the White House Correspondent, to take the top job as main news anchor. However, he turned down the offer and took over as sole anchor on the NBC Nightly News. Jennings was then selected, starting on September 5, 1983, and has become a very influential TV personality.
Jennings is sometimes accused of "liberal bias" by certain right-wing groups, such as the Media Research Center. However, supporters of Jennings contend that most critical reports of him consist of inaccuracies and/or out-of-context quotes. One critic is former ABC News reporter Peter Collins, who alleges that Jennings rewrote his piece on the 10th anniversary of the Sandinistas to make the account more favorable to the Sandinistas.
