Talk:Peter Jennings

Archives Archive 1

Major rewrite

Just letting everyone know, I'm doing a major rewrite of the article (which accounts for the rather noticeable split in style in the middle right now). Gzkn 09:03, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm impressed with your efforts on this article. Well done! Itsfullofstars 09:44, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

trivia

The trivia section should also be incorporated into the article. Gzkn, excellent job on the rewrite! --Daysleeper47 14:43, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Thank you! Yeah, I'll definitely do that (I loathe trivia sections!). Kind of at a writer's block moment that I'm trying to overcome...haven't been able to make much progress past 1983...heh :-/ Gzkn 00:47, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Toby Keith

Where is the controversey over his refusal to allow country singer Toby Keith to play "Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue (The Angry American)" on the ABC Independence Day special in 2002 because the song contained the line "We'll put a boot in your ass. It's the American way!" This led to many people in the US not watching the show and even calling for Jennings' deportation over this! Chris 14:09, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

I'll keep this in mind while I do my research. It might be undue weight though, if it wasn't exactly a big controversy. Gzkn 07:01, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Added. Thanks! I actually hadn't heard about it until you brought it up. Gzkn 08:50, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Contradicting statements regarding cremated remains

I understand that this article is in the middle of re-write but I wanted to point out an apparent contradiction. Near the end of the bio section there is a paragraph that explains that Peter's cremated remains were to be split in half and that half would be kept in his US home and the other half in his CA home. The next paragraph says that his cremated remains were spread over his farm in Canada. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.30.244.163 (talk) 12:55, 15 January 2007 (UTC).

Hi, thanks for pointing that out. However, I believe by the time you posted, I had already taken care of that contradiction. :) I found no evidence to suggest his remains were spread over his farm, so I deleted that sentence. Gzkn 00:34, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Bob Woodruff

Shouldn't Bob Woodruff be mentioned at least somewhere in the section discussing Jennings' replacement? After all, it was he and Vargas that were originally named as replacements, until he was injured by an IED in Iraq in January 2006. He has been out in recovery since then, and it is unknown if he will return to ABC News, but he should at least be mentioned.68.12.161.42 23:47, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Ah, thanks for pointing that out! Thought I had included something about his replacements, but guess not...will do! Gzkn 00:10, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

The year that Woodruff and Vargas were announced appears to be incorrect. According to World News with Charles Gibson, the announcement was made in December 2006. Additionally, the sentence about Vargas and Woodruff seems abrupt. May I suggest changing it to "Nearly eight months after Jennings stopped anchoring World New Tonight and after much speculation, ABC, on December 5, 2006, announced Vargas and Bob Woodruff as the permanent successors to Jennings." Andymarek 18:58, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Andy! You're right, it was a bit abrupt. I modified your version a bit, added it (I think you meant 2005 not 2006, right?). Gzkn 06:14, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it was in 2005.68.12.161.42 04:26, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

info box daily changes

These seems to be a bit of an edit war occuring over the use of an info box. perhaps the proponents can discuss the appoch on the Talk page rather than continualy revising the article back and forth? cmacd 14:25, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

This is still ongoing. I really don't care if the box is there or not but it can't include a fairuse image. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 20:22, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Brother/inaccurate family information

I haven't found any evidence to suggest that Peter Jennings had a brother named Rob; however, he did have a sister named Elizabeth.

You're correct, he did not have a brother. Answerthis 07:30, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

There's also no mention of his fourth wife, Kayce Freed. As she is his widow, it might be good to include something about her? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.237.53.168 (talk) 15:58, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Trivia

For what it's worth, this guy was parodied in the 2004 film "Team America".
138.243.195.136 08:55, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

New picture?

Does anyone else think the current picture at the top of the page should be changed? Surely there are better pictures of Jennings than the one that is up right now. The current picture seems to reflect too much on his sickness. I remember a while back the picture was something like this one here [1]. Perhaps change the picture to something like that? Answerthis 08:53, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Today I noticed the picture that was previously at the top of the article has been removed, along with the infobox. So, now is the time to get new versions of those back up. I'm not very good with this kind of stuff, so I'll leave it to someone else. However, I would like to see something up ASAP, as this article really needs a good picture and infobox. Thanks to anyone who can help. Answerthis 04:15, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

The picture that was there is a copyrighted television screenshot. It needs to be in the body of the article next to passage describing his sickness (along with a caption) in order to satisfy fair use (and even then, its use is slightly dubious). It can't be used just to show what he looks like in an infobox. Hopefully, someone will come along with a FREE picture to use at the top. No copyrighted pictures (even handout photos) are acceptable if we just want to show what he looks like. The article is perfectly fine though, even without a picture. A photo is just icing on the cake. 69.28.2.42 21:37, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Peterjennings033081.jpg

Image:Peterjennings033081.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images uploaded after 4 May, 2006, and lacking such an explanation will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot (talk) 20:04, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Charlie Rose's Staff doesn't Check Wikipedia

Charlie Rose interviewed those involved in the new Jennings bio tonite, and asked a question in which he asserted Jennings never became a US citizen. A female panelist (i think the widow? one of the editors?) contradicted him, and i assumed we didn't know that. But it turns out we've had it at the end of the lead secn for over a year. Have they been told "Stay away from WP, it'll mislead you"? Does he ask questions like that without checking the research they do for him? Tsk!
--Jerzy•t 04:40, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I've found Charlie Rose's research/preparation to be pretty flaky/inconsistent at times, which sometimes makes for quite awkward interviews. On another note, though, I'm excited that there's finally a biography on Jennings, even if it's only a collection of interviews. Maybe one day, someone will write an actual, authoritative biography on him; perhaps the author might even use this article as a starting point for some of the research :). 69.202.60.86 (talk) 17:42, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Marriage to Kayce Freed

To the anon. editor calling my good faith edits "vandalism": please stop being childish. Wikipedia is built on consensus. You added info about Kayce Freed, info which was sorely needed in the article. However, it was tacked on randomly as its own paragraph at the end of a section, and it was a rather awkward sentence grammatically. It also made the article seem like an obituary. I decided to merge the information with a source so that the entire article still flowed. Since it seems you agree with the "merge" idea, why didn't you just edit the sentence instead of reverting back to your unsourced version?

RE: "Happy occasion". Why are you still harping on this? I removed the phrase, and you still justify your revert by announcing your opposition to the "pleonasm". You need to stop and take a closer look at edits before reverting.

RE: "Vandalism". Excuse me? Take a look at our policy before calling good faith edits vandalism.

RE: POV. I don't believe this edit is POV at all. The "instability at work" phrase is a transition from the other sentences in the paragraph. Did you even read the rest of that paragraph? Or the article at all? 1996-1998 were certainly not the best years at ABC News, and this instability is evident in the installment of a new president in David Westin, the decision to scrap an ambitious ABC cable news network, and a loss of their ratings crown to NBC News. Take a look at the first sentence of that paragraph: "The slide in the ratings coincided with some rockiness at ABC News."

Of course, the easy thing to do when you don't like a good faith edit is to just blanket revert and call it "vandalism". But that's not how things work are supposed on Wikipedia. I didn't revert your first edit back to what the article looked like before; instead, I took your idea and built on it. Please take a look at my new edit (don't just blindly revert this please), and if you find something you don't like, edit it; it's what Wiki was built for...collaborative editing. 69.202.60.86 (talk) 15:09, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

The single sentence is flawed as it's not sourced. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 16:11, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Response to the anon, 69.202.60.86. Good grief. Alright:

1. It is clear you have not grasped why your creative phrasing is POV so I will explain it to you for a third time at greater length: to my single-sentence addition of the marriage of Peter Jennings to Kayce Freed, you added for one, ["The instability at work was offset by the happy occasion of Jennings' fourth marriage...". But you do not know that the "the instability at work" was "offset" by Jennings' marriage any more than you know his fondness for Jazz at Lincoln Center "offset" his distaste for Sweetbreads Grenobloise. I use an absurb construct to more clearly highlight the absurdity of yours. Therefore, it is conjecture and POV, at best. (This entire paragraph of yours above, mentioning David Weston, alluding to "a slide in the ratings" and so forth, has no relevance whatsoever: "RE: POV. I don't believe this edit is POV at all.")

2. Secondly, even with your speculative transition, the sentence reads as if "randomly tacked" (to use your words) by you near the end of the "Sole anchor" section. As you commanded of me--"You need to stop and take a closer look" (and I so appreciate being told what I "need" to do)--I ask the same of you: read again your edit of the "Sole anchor" section right up through "...why ABC was not interviewing Democrats." Then your sentence concerning the marriage. And then, "None of the shake-ups at work helped Jennings..." But the whole section is about work, except (for the extra-marital affair concerning Kati Marton, also awkwardly placed, and) for the nuptial interjection which reads as if an afterthought, even with your creative transition. It does not fit.

3. And what relevance does the place of the private marriage ceremony which you added (Bridgehampton, New York) have to the "Sole anchor" section about work? How is this notable, wherever the marriage may be mentioned in the article hereafter?

4. Furthermore, how is the exact date of the marriage which you also added (December 6, 1997) notable? It's not.

5. But I can guess why you thought so: you figured you would use the marriage date as a chronological marker to allow you to drop the sentence in the midst of a section almost entirely about another subject and with a little creative transition, voilà! I believe I understood what you were thinking from the start, including why you first wrote of a "happy occasion" marriage: to more clearly emphasize the notion one "offset" the other. And I had hoped that you would understand from my comments in the edit summaries why it didn't work.

6. You wrote, "Just edit the merged version if you don't like it..." and "why didn't you just edit the sentence instead of reverting back." But it is not for me to clean up your mess. As I mentioned, the convenience of chronology does not work in this case.

7. Moreover you wrote above, "RE: "Happy occasion". Why are you still harping on this? I removed the phrase..." You did. My apologies for missing that. However, had you used the Edit Summary box for what it is intended rather than to attack me with this overwrought sarcasm "Try again"??? You the Wiki editor in chief???, it would have been plain: there was no mention of your edit. (Indeed, I wrote "Try agn..." at the end of an Edit Summary in which I ran out of space. Perhaps it was abrupt. And perhaps I should have made more space and phrased it more as you did, "why don't we actually try merging it": "Why don't we actually try again !" Kidding.)

8. And so maybe my charge of vandalism after you reverted twice your POV phraseology was a bit hasty, however even hastier was your boorish epithet "please stop being childish."

9. This brings me to the "our policy" (as opposed to whose policy?) which you rather superciliously directed me to. In fact you might do well to have a read yourself: in the handful of edits you've made beginning five days ago, you summarize for one, "this section is poorly written." The target of your criticism may well be "poorly written," it may be written in Pig Latin, but "our policy" stipulates against such dismissive, accusatory characterizations. Second, talk pages are set aside for the sole purpose of improving the adjoining article, not for your incidental blather (whether or not you broached the subject): "Yeah, I've found Charlie Rose's research/preparation to be pretty flaky/inconsistent at times. On another note, though, I'm excited that...[2][3][4] Would you like me to source "our policy" on these counts?

10. What do you mean by this, "Why are you reverting to an...ungrammatical version?"? You mean to point out the sequence of tense? That the "Death" section and moreover the entire article is written in the past tense and my last edit was in the present? If so, I agree. And may I suggest that on the next such occasion you annotate with "sequence of tense" and correct it rather than add the inscrutable "ungrammatical" postscript.

11. In the same Edit Summary, you wrote, "Why are you reverting to an unsourced...version?" Your response seems to suggest, "why would I revert from your ill-placed, POV edit to one that is unsourced (and 'ungrammatical')?" But you are grasping at straws: one does not counter the other. Among our contentions, the point of sourcing is minor (we all agree on the facts, mostly--I'm still unclear as to how you view your transitional phrasing), the POV is not. You saw there was a source missing and you added it. Bravo! I completely agree (and all the better with your third attempt, as in your first, the source, about.com, can be a rag).

12. Also, you summarized, "You do realize that the whole issue of 'happy occasion' was moot". Quite right, as I conceded. However, it's a mischaracterization to state there was a "whole issue" about "happy occasion": I observed it was a redundancy and you either agreed or simply deleted it, with the feeling you were making a concession. But in fact, even the notion that the marriage, the ceremony itself or the start of Jennings-Freed union (during the "instability at work"), was a "happy occasion" is presumptuous. I'm inclined to believe it was a "happy occasion" (and redundant), most marriages certainly so start. But some get off to rocky beginnings. I wasn't there. Were you?

I've tediously spelled this out for you, 69.202.60.86, because the matter is not simply semantics or parsing phrases. It is the inferences some editors make from the facts which may lead them to embellish this introdutory or that trailing phrase, all to make the article "flow", as you write. But embellishment and POV for the sake of readability is ill-considered and runs counter to "our policy."

So, areas of agreement: 1) that the Jennings-Freed union should be mentioned (although "sorely needed"? That may be overstated); 2) that the addition should be sourced; and 3) that the addition should be "grammatical."

Areas of disagreement (?): 1) placement of the addition; and 2) transitional phrasing.

Finally: Your charge that my single-sentence placement "...made the article seem like an obituary" is exaggerated and false. In fact, it was a natural extension of the "Death" section (in that the larger public has come to know Kayce through her broadcast and print reminiscences of Peter), the last paragraph of which begins, "The Jennings family held a private service in New York, where the anchor's cremated remains were split in half. Half of his ashes remained in his home... Yes, such wordings are often included in obituaries.

Furthermore, you wrote, "we also already know about his children from the rest of the article.." in response to my including the phrase that they survived Peter, but we don't "know about his children from the rest of the article": their births are mentioned in one place alone, nothing more. And as I responsed to you before, "...children can pre-decease parents," but I am ready to let that go.

Action: I will again revert your edit for all the reasons I've expansively stated with the inclusion of the source you ferreted out (thank you), with a mind to sequence of tense, with a rephrasing and without the mention of Peter's children.

Lest you think I'm highly enamoured of or wedded to the placement of the single-sentence addition, let me assure you otherwise. But I contend your re-placement was not an improvement.

As events or people notable to a particular article come to light, we often don't know where to insert the addition. Sometimes a chronological insert as you tried to fashion works. Other times it doesn't and the editor is left guessing where to edit.

In this case, until more comes to light about Kayce which would seem notable in the Jennings article, I'm comfortable with the addition as I've edited it.

Comprimise: However, if you feel you cannot live with it, I would suggest you start a "Personal life" section on Peter which will take some re-writing. Indeed, perhaps you will agree that mention of the marriage to Kati Marton is plopped in the middle of the Foreign Correspondent section: "Jennings also found renewed success in his personal life. In 1979, he married for the third time..." along with the dirt about its resolution awkwardly inserted in the next, "On August 13, 1993, Jennings and Kati Marton publicly announced their separation in Newsday." Furthermore, the mention of Peter's first wife in the same section two paragraphs up is "randomly tacked" on, "His first wife had been childhood sweetheart Valerie Godsoe."

Final Action: In the event that you may fixate on this and not see beyond a chronological "merge"--though I'll hope otherwise--I will contact an Administrator to have a look. 4.249.111.232 (talk) 16:39, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Good Lord. You really are making a mountain out of a molehill... Great to see you dragging up my other edits to criticize me on this talk page, while maintaining that I should keep my edits on the talk page to discussing the article only. Oh the irony. I am sincerely heartened, though, that you finally stopped being stubborn and tried for a compromise (which is acceptable to me), instead of knee-jerk reverting all of my edits. Now can we please drop this inane matter? 69.202.60.86 (talk) 18:58, 25 December 2007 (UTC)