J

Peter Jennings
Listed entries on Jennings go back to January 2002. Use the search engine to find Jennings items dating back as far at 1987.

After the Senate voted to approve a ban on partial-birth abortion, Jennings made it sound as if all abortions had been outlawed.
(CyberAlert, October 22, 2003)

On day two of ABC’s week-long promotion of further government control and regulation of health care, Jennings and Dr. Tim Johnson delivered a pre-packaged scripted conversation in which Johnson shot down Jennings’s recitation of faulty “conventional wisdom” points about why universal, government-paid health care is bad.
(CyberAlert, October 21, 2003)

See how Jennings and his network stacked up against the competition in MRC’s study on coverage of the budget deficit.
(Media Reality Check, October, 21, 2003)

The same poll that led the Washington Post to declare, “President Rallying Support in Polls: Rebound Sets Campaign Team into Action” prompted Jennings to open World News Tonight with the assessment that in the new poll “the President doesn’t do that well.”
(CyberAlert, October 15, 2003)

When USA Today broke a story about an identical letter, signed by different soldiers in the same unit, that had appeared in some stateside newspapers, at the bottom of its page 7, Jennings offered insight as to the type of Web pages he visits as he saw how “on the Internet today, many people were assuming this was propaganda from the Bush administration.”
(CyberAlert, October 14, 2003)

Instead of emphasizing how Arnold Schwarzenegger beat Governor Gray Davis head-to-head or his big 17 point margin over Democrat Cruz Bustamante, Jennings chose to stress how 4.3 million voted to recall Davis while “a smaller number, 3.6 million, or 48 percent, voted to elect Mr. Schwarzenegger.”
(CyberAlert, October 9, 2003)

Hours before the polls closed, Jennings delighted in “the irony” of how the recall, which “conservative Republicans had engineered to get rid of a moderate Democratic Governor,” had led Gray Davis to sign “a lot of legislation pushed by liberals.”
(CyberAlert, October 8, 2003)

Jennings helped smear Arnold Schwarzenegger so Democrats wouldn’t have to.
(Media Reality Check, October 6, 2003)
(CyberAlert, October 7, 2003)
(Notable Quotables, October 13, 2003)

Jennings followed the network crowd in leading his newscast with an anti-conservative news agenda: allegations against Arnold, allegations of Rush Limbaugh’s involvement in a drug ring, more on “Leakgate,” and David Kay’s inability so far to find weapons of mass destruction.
(CyberAlert, October 3, 2003)
(CyberAlert, October 3, 2003)
(Notable Quotables, October 13, 2003)

Jennings highlighted a new poll showing public preference for a special prosecutor and then went to Jake Tapper who equated the alleged actions of the Bush White House with Philip Agee, the discredited CIA agent now living in communist Cuba who in the 1970s revealed the names of many of his colleagues.
(CyberAlert, October 2, 2003)

Jennings continued the focus on “Leakgate” while ignoring former Ambassador Joseph Wilson’s liberal views.
(CyberAlert, October 1, 2003)

Jennings led World News Tonight’s entrance into scandal mode on the CIA name leak.
(CyberAlert, September 30, 2003)

Jennings gave credibility to liberal talking points, jumping on a February 2001 comment by Secretary of State Powell about how “Saddam Hussein has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction” and emphasized that David Kay’s team has found nothing so far.
(CyberAlert, September 26, 2003)
(Notable Quotables, October 13, 2003)

Jennings was the only anchor to highlight a Gallup poll of people in Baghdad which found that 62 percent think that getting rid of Saddam Hussein was “worth the personal hardship” they endured and 67 percent believe that in five years the nation will be better off than it was under Hussein.
(CyberAlert, September 25, 2003)

Peter Jennings, who usually is the most hostile to Bush’s Iraq policy and the most enthusiastic about highlighting criticisms, was not nearly as condemnatory of President Bush as was CBS and NBC in reporting on how President Bush declared that “we've had no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with the September 11th.”
(CyberAlert, September 18, 2003)

After recalling how “thousands of Iraqi Kurds” were “reportedly killed in 1988 by Saddam Hussein’s use of chemical weapons in the north,” Jennings seconds later announced how “David Kay is finalizing his report on the search for Saddam Hussein’s alleged weapons of mass destruction,” emphasizing how “the U.S. has not yet presented evidence proving they existed.”
(CyberAlert, September 16, 2003)

On the second anniversary of September 11th, Jennings set the focus on the detainees at Guantanamo Bay.
(CyberAlert, September 12, 2003)

Jennings pressed Attorney General Ashcroft on whether “he was uncomfortable being thought of as one of the country’s most divisive public figures?” and “Do you think these portraits of you abusing power, seeking power, relentlessly exercising individual power are caricatures?”
(CyberAlert, September 11, 2003)

Jennings ran through some bad poll numbers for President Bush the day after his address to the nation about his request for $87 billion for Iraq.
(CyberAlert, September 9, 2003)

Following President Bush’s address to the nation, Jennings asked Terry Moran to confirm that the $87 billion in new spending Bush proposed is “on top of all the money for construction, right?”
(CyberAlert, September 8, 2003)

When Democrats used a filibuster threat to block President Bush’s nomination of Miguel Estrada to a DC federal appeals court slot, Jennings failed to point out the unprecedented nature of the tactic.
(CyberAlert, September 5, 2003)

After taking most of the summer off, Peter Jennings returned to his World News Tonight anchor chair and delivered a liberal line-up as only he could.
(CyberAlert, September 3, 2003)
(Notable Quotables, September 15, 2003)

The MRC celebrated Jennings 20th anniversary with a special web section and Media Reality Check dedicated to his liberally slanted delivery of the news.
(Report: World News Tonight with Peter Jennings)
(Media Reality Check, September 3, 2003)

The ABC anchor earned several mentions in CyberAlert’s Best of Summer 2003 edition. Jennings belittled the tax cut – “Will three extra dollars stimulate the national economy,” he snapped on the July 8 World News Tonight – and was upset that the Iraq-African uranium issue wasn’t hurting President Bush. 
(CyberAlert, August 29, 2003)

ABC’s Mike Lee referred to Hamas as “a political and social welfare organization with a military wing.” This line echoed Jennings’ steadfast refusal to label Hamas and Hezbollah as terrorist groups. 
(CyberAlert, August 22, 2003)

When Sen. Joe Biden’s (D-Del.) decided to showboat at a Senate hearing on Iraq, Jennings highlighted the partisan criticism of the Bush administration and the Pentagon.
(CyberAlert, July 23, 2003)

Jennings highlighted how Vice President Dick Cheney “has been accused” of “pressuring agencies to come up with information that would justify an attack on Iraq.” The ABC anchor didn’t give the Vice President a syllable of a sound bite.
(CyberAlert, July 25, 2003)

Highlighting the negative reaction of a few soldiers in Iraq and the subsequent furor over it, Jennings said: “We were reminded today of a common refrain from drill sergeants to their troops: 'We are here to defend democracy, not to practice it.’”
(CyberAlert, July 17, 2003)

Jennings previewed World News Tonight’s upcoming stories: “In Iraq, American soldiers lash out at the Bush administration, angry and confused about their mission. On Capitol Hill, the Democrats lash out at the President. He’s accused of lying about the case for war and mismanaging the economy.”
(CyberAlert, July 16, 2003)

Immediately after relaying the anger of U.S. soldiers in Iraq, Jennings introduced a story that ran through a litany of attacks on the Bush administration by liberal Democrats.
(CyberAlert, July 16, 2003)

An ABC News/Washington Post poll found that 52 percent of Americans believed the level of U.S. casualties in Iraq unacceptable, and 50 percent believed the Bush administration intentionally exaggerated the evidence that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction in arguing for the war.
(CyberAlert, July 14, 2003)

The anchor said President Bush faced “a skeptical population” in Africa “…in part, because of the war in Iraq.” World News Tonight also showcased a thousand far-left and communist protesters whom CBS and NBC ignored. 
(CyberAlert, July 10, 2003)

On World News Tonight, Jennings scoffed at the tax cut, asking, “Will three extra dollars stimulate the national economy?”
(CyberAlert, July 10, 2003)
(Notable Quotables, July 21, 2003)

After the White House admitted that its claim that Iraq had received uranium from Niger was based on forged documents, Jennings was among those who made broad assertions about how the concession undermined a premise for war.
(CyberAlert, July 9, 2003)

Jennings, who once admitted on the Late Show that growing up in Canada he was "raised with anti-Americanism” in his blood, was sworn in as a U.S. citizen on May 30, 2003.
(CyberAlert, July 9, 2003)

ABC News was so astounded by General Tommy Franks’ defense of President Bush’s “bring ‘em on” statement that it was the only part of Diane Sawyer’s interview with the general that Jennings highlighted.
(CyberAlert, July 8, 2003)

At the top of World News Tonight, Jennings announced: “The Bush administration says conditions in Iraq are improving. But today a mosque was damaged and American soldiers wounded.” Jennings’ tone matched the assertion of former Army officer Ralph Peters who argued in a New York Post op-ed that the media obscured America’s overall success in Iraq by focusing only on the negative. 
(CyberAlert, July 2, 2003)

Jennings’ lengthy obituary about the segregationist former Governor of Georgia Lester Maddox never mentioned that Maddox was a Democrat.
(CyberAlert, June 26, 2003)
(Notable Quotables, July 7, 2003)

As guest host of the Late Show, Kelsey Grammer delivered this joke during his opening monologue: “So it seems I've been playing the same effete, pompous character on television for 20 years. And I know what you're thinking: ‘Wow, Peter Jennings looks terrible!’”
(CyberAlert, June 25, 2003)
(CyberAlert, July 1, 2003)

Jennings reported that the White House had edited a “major report on the environment” and worried “…that virtually nothing will be said about climate change when the report is published next week”
(CyberAlert, June 20, 2003)

Jennings lamented that low-income families “will have to wait almost a year to get the child tax credit.” The tax cut, he pointed out, “does provide immediate relief to higher income earners.”
(CyberAlert, June 16, 2003)

Jennings opened World News Tonight with charges that the Bush administration exaggerated intelligence reports on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction.
(CyberAlert, June 10, 2003)

In a World News Tonight broadcast from the site of the Middle East summit in Aqaba, Jordan, Jennings described Islamic Jihad and Hamas simply as “Palestinian groups” and characterized their terrorist actions as their “fighting Israel.”
(CyberAlert, June 5, 2003)

“On World News Tonight, the tax cut surprise. Some of the people who need it most will benefit the least,” is how Jennings opened his May 29 program. 
(CyberAlert, May 30, 2003)

Jennings lashed out at the MRC, which he characterized as “a number of militant conservatives or activist conservatives or whatever you want to call them,” for giving his war coverage an F in its Special Report Grading TV’s War News.
(CyberAlert, May 22, 2003)

Jennings claimed that the terrorist bombings in Saudi Arabia showed that “al-Qaeda is better organized than the Bush administration has either believed or said publicly,”
(CyberAlert, May 14, 2003)

Jennings previewed an upcoming story about states “forced to raise taxes as the federal government cuts taxes.”
(CyberAlert, May 13, 2003)
(Notable Quotables, May 26, 2003)

MSNBC's Keith Olbermann inadvertently exposed Jennings’ source of information for a World News Tonight story belittling the U.S. commando rescue of POW Jessica Lynch. A similar story had ran in Jennings’ hometown paper, the Toronto Star, a couple of days earlier.
(CyberAlert, May 9, 2003)

Former ABC News reporter Peter Collins recounted how Jennings changed one of his stories in 1989 to make it more positive toward the Sandinistas. On MSNBC's Buchanan & Press, Collins recalled how Jennings “essentially dictated to me what I should say in the piece.”
(CyberAlert, May 9, 2003)

Jennings belittled the rescue of POW Jessica Lynch from an Iraqi hospital, claiming it may have been “less dangerous” than reported.
(CyberAlert, May 8, 2003)
(Notable Quotables, May 26, 2003)

Jennings relayed the complaints about President Bush’s carrier landings from a pair of liberals, Congressman Henry Waxman and Senator Robert Byrd.
(CyberAlert, May 7, 2003)

Jennings conceded that reports of looting in the Baghdad museum had been exaggerated. “The looting at the national museum may not have been as extensive as some people first reported,” he told viewers.
(CyberAlert, May 2, 2003)

Former ABC reporter Peter Collins told CNSNews.com that 14 years ago Jennings had forced him to change the language of a story to cast the Sandinistas in a more positive light. “He called me up, massaged my script in a way that I no longer recognized it,” Collins said.
(CyberAlert, May 2, 2003)

Jennings claimed that Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan disagreed with President Bush’s assertion that the tax cut would stimulate the economy.
(CyberAlert, May 1, 2003)

Jennings indulged the paranoid left by previewing a story about “being against the war and in show business and the people who want to punish you for that.”
(Notable Quotables, April 28, 2003)

Jennings joined Iraqis in blaming the United States for museum lootings: “As we’ve reported, so many places that maybe should have been guarded in Iraq were not,” he claimed.
(Notable Quotables, April 28, 2003)

Moments before U.S. Marines helped cheering Iraqis topple their former dictator’s statue, Jennings lamented that “the sculpting of Saddam Hussein, which has been a growth industry for 20 years, may well be a dying art.” 
(Notable Quotables, April 28, 2003)

An MRC Special Report, Grading TV’s War News, gave a failing grade to “highly tendentious Peter Jennings, who played up any defeatist angle he could find.” Jennings’ network, ABC got a D minus.
(Special Report: Grading TV's War News)
(Media Reality Check, April 23, 2003)

In briefly noting how President Bush had decided to nominate Alan Greenspan for another term as Fed Chairman, Jennings reminded viewers that “Mr. Greenspan said the President's plans for a huge tax cut would do little to stimulate the economy.”
(CyberAlert, April 23, 2003)

Peter Jennings: A Review of the ABC Anchor’s Iraq Coverage. A compilation of CyberAlert items and other MRC products, this document examined Jennings’ biased coverage of the lead-up to war, the war itself and its immediate aftermath. Compilation contains 74 items.

In noting that President Bush planned to nominate Alan Greenspan for another term as Fed Chairman, Jennings squeezed in a reminder that Greenspan felt the President’s “huge tax cut” would do little for the economy.
(CyberAlert, April 23, 2003)

Jennings did manage to squeeze in a quick mention about Fidel Castro’s crackdown in early April.
(CyberAlert, April 8, 2003)

Though President Bush decided only to oppose the policy of automatically awarding points to applicants at the University of Michigan if they belonged to one of a select list of racial or ethnic classifications, Jennings announced “the President joins a lawsuit against affirmative action.”
(CyberAlert, January 16, 2003)

Jennings trumpeted the failure of the U.N. inspections teams to find weapons of mass destruction as a problem for the Bush administration.
(CyberAlert, January 10, 2003)

Jennings worried how much President Bush’s proposed tax cuts would “cost” the government.
(CyberAlert, January 8, 2003)

The ABC anchor pushed the Democratic spin on the Bush tax cut, relaying how “they say it grossly favors the wealthy.”
(CyberAlert, January 7, 2003)

ABC News poll found 62 percent supported President Bush’s Iraq policy but Jennings claimed the public was “somewhat cautious about attacking Iraq.”
(CyberAlert, December 18, 2002)

The ABC anchor told viewers a multi-billion dollar missile defense system would be deployed “with serious doubts that it will work.”
(CyberAlert, December 18, 2002)

Jennings highlighted a former Iraqi Army General who didn’t want the U.S. to attack Iraq. Unfortunately, the General was being tried at The Hague for war crimes against the Kurds.
(CyberAlert, December 12, 2002)

The ABC anchor was objective in this report on Sen. Trent Lott’s controversy, especially when compared to CBS.
(CyberAlert, December 12, 2002)

Bill Donaldson, President Bush’s appointee to chair the Security and Exchange Commission, was called “a controversial choice” and “a fairly controversial appointment” by Jennings.
(CyberAlert, December 11, 2002)

“He is said to be in favor of further tax cuts but against deficits. Doesn’t one lead to the other?” Jennings opined of John Snow, President Bush’s nominee for Secretary of the Treasury.
(CyberAlert, December 10, 2002)

According to Jennings, “The administration has been widely accused of favoring corporate interests in its energy policy.”
(CyberAlert, December 10, 2002)

The Iraqi government will say it has no weapons of mass destruction and the U.S. will say it’s lie, Jennings said, “but who will prove it.”
(CyberAlert, December 5, 2002)

Torture by air conditioning. Jennings and ABC ran a story about a Pakistani detainee at Guantanomo Bay who said the air conditioning was used to torture him.
(CyberAlert, November 20, 2002)

Jennings suggested that a new poll on American attitudes toward Islam was alarming. The poll found Americans felt Islam encouraged violence and lacked respect for other religions.
(CyberAlert, November 19, 2002)

Jennings and the New York Times provided conflicting information about Alan Greenspan. Jennings said he didn’t back the Bush tax cut while the Times said he did.
(CyberAlert, November 15, 2002)

Saddam Hussein agreed to allow inspectors into Iraq and the news delighted Jennings, who claimed the Bush administration had been threatening war “almost on the assumption that Iraq would not cooperate.”
(CyberAlert, November 15, 2002)

When Alan Greenspan said there were enough regulatory mechanisms in place to deal with corporate scandals, ABC didn’t mention it. When Greenspan refused to say tax cuts should be made permanent, Jennings trumpeted the news.
(CyberAlert, November 14, 2002)

Jennings’ controversy with country music singer Toby Keith was re-visited at the Country Music Association awards program. Singer Vince Gill jokingly said he’d ask the ABC anchor to give an award to singer Toby Keith but Jennings declined because he was afraid “he’d get one of them boots up the ass.”
(CyberAlert, November 8, 2002)

On Election Night 2002, Jennings posted this question to Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.): “If the Republicans do end up with control of the Senate, what would worry you most?”
(CyberAlert, November 6, 2002)

Palestine Peter: Peter Jennings and the Palestinians. This 2002 spotlight document examined Jennings’ pro-Palestinian bias. Contains 12 items.

 

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