RE: Peter Jennings Dies At 67

Jennings was an unapologetically leftist. From his derisive, on-air snorts of disgust at the elections of Ronald Reagan and both Bush's to his open disgust for every rightward move in the American political landscape, he rarely made any attempt to disguise his arch-leftist leanings.

Here are a couple of tidbits:

This is from a Kansas City Star article:

"I'm a little concerned about this notion everybody wants us to be objective," Jennings said.

Jennings said that everyone -- even journalists -- have points of view through which they filter their perception of the news. It could be race, sex or income. But, he said, reporters are ideally trained to be as objective as possible.

"And when we don't think we can be fully objective, to be fair," the anchorman said.

This is from an interview with David Letterman:

"My mother was pretty anti-American. And so I was, in some respects, raised with anti-Americanism in my blood, or in my mother's milk at least."

And this is from a CBS News special on reporters:

"We may tell you all the time that our principal aim in life is to communicate and assist, inform. But if you see injustice and you can get people to do something about it, ahh, it's just a glorious feeling. There's nothing a reporter likes more than to have an effect on policy."

So as to the objective of providing a rough draft of history, it is an admirable desire, but you'll excuse me if I view Jennings' pursuit of it with a somewhat suspicious eye. His public record indicates that he was strongly inclined to have that draft leaning distinctly to the left. Many on the right and left lament the loss of an objective press. We all miss a news media that was intent on reporting the news and not on selling soap or ideologies.

As for Fox News, by any objective measure, their orientation could be called moderate at most. Because Fox does not simply present the leftist pablum regurgitated by CNN and the three broadcast networks, it subjectively appears well right of those outlets. However, Sean Hannity, Fred Barnes, and Bill O'Reilly are definitely not respective of the broad spectrum of rightist thought. Mark Steyn and Ann Coulter are only occasional contributors and I can't recall ever seeing George Neumayr or Joseph Farah on Fox. As well, it would be difficult to defend the assertion that Fox is strongly biased to the right when the likes of Alan Colmes, Juan Williams, Mara Liason, and Susan Estrich are regular contributors.