WFAA-TV showcased a letter in which a viewer charged: "With the most horrific attack upon the United States since Pearl Harbor unfolding before our very eyes, Mr. Jennings sees fit to bash the Bush administration."
Jennings anchored the November 19 World News Tonight from Dallas as part of a series of stops around the country to look at the post-September 11 mood. For the last story of the program Jennings relayed the opinions he gathered over the weekend during Sunday’s tailgate party before the Dallas Cowboys football game. He didn’t fare as well as President Bush and Jennings deserves credit for being willing to highlight displeasure with the media and himself. He observed:
"The President’s approval rating is high in his home state."
Man: "George Bush, so far, has done an unbelievable job."
Jennings: "Many of us in the media don’t get the same high marks."
Jennings to a second man: "Can you tell me how the mood is in Dallas these days."
The second man: "Nobody likes you."
Jennings summarized his beef: "This man told us our reporting in these days is unpatriotic and cannot help the nation get back to business."
Later in the same day as the man castigated him, Jennings moderated a WFAA-TV special about media coverage of terrorism. He soon faced questions about how he treated President Bush in the hours after the terrorist attacks.
Jim Romenesko’s MediaNews (http://www.poynter.org/medianews) on Monday highlighted a November 19 Dallas Morning News story about the November 18 panel show. An excerpt from the story by reporter Ed Bark:
ABC anchor Peter Jennings and four local journalists put their news judgments on the line Sunday evening in a live telecast that gave consumers a chance to question the barrage of coverage sent their way since Sept. 11.
Titled Covering Terrorism: Critiquing the Media, the one-hour program was produced by ABC affiliate WFAA-TV (Channel 8) and originated from that station's Dallas studios.
Mr. Jennings mostly moderated give-and-take among 12 questioners and a panel made up of Channel 8 anchor John McCaa; Robert W. Mong Jr., president and editor of The Dallas Morning News; KERA-TV (Channel 13) news director Yolette Garcia; and WBAP-AM (820) talk-show host Mark Davis.
Mr. Jennings came under sharp scrutiny himself, however, after Channel 8 surprised him by bridging a commercial break with videotape of the ABC anchor wondering about President Bush's whereabouts on the day of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
The excerpt, played "unbeknownst to me," Mr. Jennings said, was followed by in-studio questioning from Craig Stambaugh of Arlington, who had criticized the anchor in a letter to The News that also was excerpted on Sunday's program.
"With the most horrific attack upon the United States since Pearl Harbor unfolding before our very eyes, Mr. Jennings sees fit to bash the Bush administration," Mr. Stambaugh had written in part to The News.
Mr. Jennings agreed that a "number of people took objection" to his remarks, in which he asked on the air, "Where is the president of the United States?...I know we don't know where he is, but pretty soon the country needs to know where he is."
His comments were "in no way intended to question his [Mr. Bush's] actions," Mr. Jennings said, but rather to express "how important it was for all of us in the country to see the president."
Most of the panelists sided with him, although WBAP's Mr. Davis said the timing of the anchor's remarks was questionable. He said Mr. Jennings seemed to be implying that President Bush was foundering in the early hours of a crisis situation....
END of Excerpt
To read the story in full, go to:
http://www.dallasnews.com/entertainment/STORY.ea437538a6.b0.af.0.a4.d967f.html