Peter Jennings has lung cancer

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Toonces

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For people who used to watch ABC World News and are familiar with the news anchor Peter Jennings, here's the semi-sad news:


Peter Jennings has lung cancer

Tuesday, April 5, 2005 Posted: 12:41 PM EDT (1641 GMT)

(CNN) -- ABC news anchor Peter Jennings has been diagnosed with lung cancer, his colleagues were told Tuesday.

ABC News President David Westin informed the staff of ABC News in a memo saying Jennings, 66, would begin outpatient treatment and expects to continue to anchor "World News Tonight."

"There will be good days and bad, which means some days I may be cranky and some days really cranky," Jennings told ABC News employees in an e-mail, according to The Associated Press.

The text of the memo from Westin is as follows:

"This morning, Peter Jennings told his senior staff at World News Tonight that yesterday afternoon he was diagnosed with lung cancer. ... He will begin outpatient treatment next week here in New York. It's both Peter's and my expectation that he will anchor World News Tonight during the period of treatment to the extent he can do so comfortably; but, we should also expect him to be off the broadcast from time to time, depending on how he feels.

"Charlie Gibson, Elizabeth Vargas, and others will be substituting for Peter as necessary and when their other responsibilities permit.

"All of us at ABC News have watched over the years as Peter has led us on various assignments with strength and with courage. We've done our best to support him in these endeavors. Now, Peter's been given a tough assignment. He's already bringing to this new challenge the courage and strength we've seen so often in his reporting from the field and in anchoring ABC News.

"I know that all of us will give him every bit of support that he needs and asks for. Peter will once again lead the way, but we will stand with him at every turn."

Jennings has been the sole anchor of "World News Tonight" since 1983. He was part of a group of anchors, with Frank Reynolds and Max Robinson, for several years before that. He also anchored ABC's evening news show in the 1960s, when he was in his late 20s.

source: http://www.cnn.com/2005/SHOWBIZ/TV/04/05/jennings.cancer/index.html
 
damn.... I like him. hope he doesnt suffer so much like my grandad did. He died from lung cancer in 97
 
I did see this on the T.V. news recently--

Hopefully he'll be able to overcome this and beat this cancer. ;)
 
The survival rate for lung cancer had dramatically improved in recent years. The man who owns the machine factory where I work winters is in his late 70's and has lived with one lung for about 16 years. He has never smoked by the way.

I wish the best for Peter and his family.

You can find his official ABC biography here:
http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=126542

An excerpt:

As one of America's most distinguished journalists, Peter Jennings has reported many of the pivotal events that have shaped our world. He was in Berlin in the 1960s when the Berlin Wall was going up, and there in the '90s when it came down. He covered the civil rights movement in the southern United States during the 1960s, and the struggle for equality in South Africa during the 1970s and '80s. He was there when the Voting Rights Act was signed in 1965, and on the other side of the world when South Africans voted for the first time. He has worked in every European nation that once was behind the Iron Curtain. He was there when the independent political movement Solidarity was born in a Polish shipyard, and again when Poland's communist leaders were forced from power. And he was in Hungary, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Romania and throughout the Soviet Union to record first the repression of communism and then its demise. He was one of the first reporters who went to Vietnam in the 1960s, and went back to the killing fields of Cambodia in the 1980s to remind Americans that, unless they did something, the terror would return.
 
Codger said:
The survival rate for lung cancer had dramatically improved in recent years. The man who owns the machine factory where I work winters is in his late 70's and has lived with one lung for about 16 years. He has never smoked by the way.

I wish the best for Peter and his family.
Click to expand...

John Wayne lived many more years after removed one lung.

I wonder how bad is it for Peter? How far it went in his lungs?
 
:eek2: Oh no that's terrible news to hear... I wonder what caused it? I hope he beats the odds, too.
 
Katzie said:
:eek2: Oh no that's terrible news to hear... I wonder what caused it? I hope he beats the odds, too.
Click to expand...


i believe he was a smoker... i hope he beats this too... :(
 
That's really sad to hear, I hope he makes it! :(
 
That is unfortunate news for him and my heart goes out to him.
I have watched him for many years, but the thing I most remember about him is his blatant lying in a news sopt from Walter Reed Hosptital. I do not rremember the date of the tv segment, but in it he was telling millions of viewers that he interviewed the wounded soldiers of the Iraq war and that "to a man" they wanted to go back. He was squirming while he was saying that and I knew immediately that he was lying., and I felt outraged.
I knew someone at the Walter Reed Hospital who claimed the exact opposite of what Jennings said, that the wounded were bitter. THAT made more sense than the Gung-Ho news we got, right? But never mind.

Peter Jenning is gone. He was just another media whore at the end.
To hell with him.
 
I'm bothered by this. Jennings was a smoker, and I am currently on a friend of mine to give up her cigs. She's had this cough for a couple months now also, and I keep telling her to get her behind to a doctor. ::::sigh::::
 
Well, Oceanbreeze, if you want a longer life, don't even THINK about smoking.
I am a lot more bothered, though, by the lifestyles of all the millions of different ones demonstrated daily. That is my own fault and I won't rant and demand that they conform to my ideal.
 
FeistyChick said:
i believe he was a smoker... i hope he beats this too... :(
Click to expand...
I was watching 6:00pm EST news and they mentioned it was caused by smoking.

Check this out...

"A former smoker who quit 20 years ago, Jennings resumed smoking briefly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The 66-year-old anchor was too ill to work Saturday during the network's special report on Pope John Paul II's death. He hasn't been feeling well the past few months, and didn't travel under doctor's orders after December's tsunami because of what was described then as an upper respiratory infection. He did go to Iraq in January for the elections."

Article

:shock: dang!
 
Beowulf said:
Well, Oceanbreeze, if you want a longer life, don't even THINK about smoking.
I am a lot more bothered, though, by the lifestyles of all the millions of different ones demonstrated daily. That is my own fault and I won't rant and demand that they conform to my ideal.
Click to expand...

I don't smoke, and I have never smoked. However, I also would never impose my will on other people. I will say that I am concerned about my friend and her smoking . I worry about her health. I realize, however, that it's her decision to quit. But, do demand that she quit? No, I would never do that. It's not my place.
 
Good for you Oceanbreeze! On all counts. I am always pleased to hear of people who have made the choice to never start smoking. I guarantee you that harping about a smoker's addiction has very little effect. That is not the same as asking them not to smoke around you, or in your home or car.

It is a nasty smelling, expensive, health injuring habit. No two ways about it. But starting is a personal choice (I am not sure that continuing is once a person is addicted). And no amount of badgering will help a person overcome the addiction and quit.

That said, hundreds of other behaviors are more damaging to health. Tobacco is just the current whipping boy for healthier living. Just one such example is the overindulgence in soft drinks. Particularly those with chemical sweeteners. They are for the most part highly acidic, and many contain addictive caffine. There are hundreds of other examples we have discussed here on the AD forum.
 
The risk of lung cancer in ex-smokers even after 10 years of no smoking STILL remains higher than a person who never smoked. Smoking often causes permament damage to lungs and some organs. Even if Jennings didn't smoke again after 9-11, he would still have cancer anyway. Lung cancer doesn't just appear that soon. It takes at least a decade to start the lung cancer.

I quit smoking in 1997. That means I haven't smoked for 8 years.

-jeff
 
I heard about it by saw on tv and hope that Peter Jennings makes through to beat it and survive it. My prayers go out to him to beat this cancer...

PurrMeow
 
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