August 18, 2005
ContentmentDriving home tonight after dropping my friend off, I rediscovered that sense of contentment after a day of unrestricted and uncomplicated fun. It was a long day at the fair - with rides, nausea, food, music, livestock, and fun. Then it was over and I felt the same way I did as a little boy on the trip home after a fun family day trip. The fun is over, and now it's time to go home and relax. All of the other problems swirling around me are, for the moment, held at bay.
posted by Adam at 22:12 |
August 10, 2005
Peter Jennings 1938 - 2005I was always an NBC man. When news happened, it was always Tom Brokaw's face that I tuned into. And yet, in the days since Peter Jenning's passing on Sunday I have seen things and heard stories, from the top journalists and government brass to my co-worker at work, that have caused my respect for who he was grow considerably, and my respect for what he did grow even more.
His broadcast was called World News Tonight. I never gave this curious fact much thought. It should have perhaps struck me as strange that a national broadcast would label itself with international significance. Had I ever come around to thinking about it before he passed away, I would have probably shrugged it off as additional media arrogance in an era where they have less and less to be arrogant about.
The stories and rembrances of the past few days have shown me something different. In an environment increasingly prone to focusing solely on the events within our little sphere of cultural significance, where Michael Jackson's sideshow of a trial is prone to get more airtime than a massive human disaster on the other side of the world, Jennings pushed for better coverage, more comprehensive coverage, and more worthwhile coverage. Even if a story didn't connect with the American people, if Jennings felt it was important people know about it he would push to continue covering it. He would highlight the truly important stories of the day and put them into the sort of context only a nightly broadcast can provide.
We now have three full-time cable news channels, and yet I am fairly confident we are getting less actual news coverage than ever before. As the pundits twist and spin the headlines to meet their particular ideologies more and more, the facts behind them increasingly get lost in the shuffle. Peter Jennings was a force that was willing to move against that tide, a force that strongly believed that broadcast journalism had the ability to conduct itself with integrity and forcefully believed that it had a responsibility to do so. If nothing else, I will miss him for that - a reminder and a herald of everything media could and should be.
posted by Adam at 22:23 |
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Adam Freelance Film Critic
Albany, NY
Boston, MA
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