The world remains shocked and eerily obsessed with the mortal departure of ABC news anchor Peter Jennings after his short but well-publicized battle with cancer. With several primetime memorial specials, newspaper editorials, and lots of merchandise on the way to local stores, people are remembering the legacy of the deceased newsman. But no matter what else people might say about the mark he left, one thing all can agree on: He read the news.
“He not only changed the way we thought about the news, but the way we watched the news,” said media kiss-ass Earl Shmonster. “I have no examples to back that up. But you name any news event in the past twenty years, you can bet Peter Jennings covered it. Or introduced us to the guy who was covering it. He was faithfully at his desk whenever something happened that the nation needed to be told about.”
Jennings’ death, both tragic and timely, has seized the consciousness of a nation that had all but given up on paying attention to the news. His terminal illness has been a dazzling source of conversation and meditation on our own mortality. While some people are already talking about who will be the next ABC news anchor, one thing is patently clear: They will have to die in a really horrific way to steal back the nation’s focus from the late Peter Jennings.
“Jennings was a consummate reporter,” said a national news editorial copied nearly word for word a thousand times over since the anchor man’s death. “He was always in the field, when he wasn’t behind the anchor desk. His soothing voice and rugged good looks kept us all calm and placated while he told us about AIDS, rising poverty, election fraud, space shuttles blowing up, and, more recently, terrorism. He was more than the face of ABC network news: He was its voice, too.”
The Peter Jennings’ death frenzy has carried over beyond a hurricane of media coverage, including a bevy of Jennings-related items for sale on eBay and a series of Jennings news pieces headed for DVD to offer consolation to grief-stricken Jennings fans who possess money. But Jennings’ death has affected the world in non-marketable ways, too, convincing several in the population to find out more information about lung cancer. The first thing most of them learn from Jennings’ experience: Don’t get it.
Spokesperson Nanny Freedmont from the Rubb-Houston Center for Celebrity Deaths: “The death of Peter Jennings was more than the loss of a father, husband, and media professional: It was the loss of someone famous. A person who we saw regularly on the TV every night for years, and whom we’ve developed a perfectly healthy attachment to. We considered him a friend, and we feel the void he’s left behind, and will continue to until at least the next celebrity passes away tragically.”
Jennings’ departure sparked hundreds of responses from people everywhere, but since we’ve never heard of most of them, we only selected a few to cover. Like this one from the American Cancer Association:
“Hundreds of thousands of people die from lung cancer every year. But none of them were famous. God bless ye, Peter Jennings, America’s nightly news Jesus.”
Another fond farewell came from colleague and friendly nightly news rival Dan Rather.
“Jennings was a fine newsman and always read the news without error. He was never stymied by the more challenging words, like ‘fiduciary responsibility.’ He will be missed. Me, on the other hand, going out in a puff of smoke and a blaze of scandal. I mean, what the fuck, America? What would it take to get a simple friendly good-bye from you people? I’m not on the news anymore either, you know. I guess I’ll have to burst into fucking flame or something to get a ‘So long and fuck off, Dan!’”
Speaking of bursting into fucking flame, the commune news pays its own final tribute to the world’s greatest news reader, Peter Jennings: Out, out, brief candle.