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Peter Jennings (born July 29, 1938 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada) is the lead anchor for the America evening news program ABC World News Tonight for the ABC network. He became an American citizen in July 2003, but still maintains his Canadian citizenship; as such, Jennings is a dual citizen of the two countries.
Peter Jennings is the son of Charles Jennings, a leading journalist for CBC in Canada. On December 31, 1999, 175 million people tuned into at a least a portion of his network's Millennium Eve special "ABC 2000," also known as "ABC 2000 Today."
Jennings replaced Frank Reynolds after his unexpected death. The president of ABC News first chose Tom Brokaw, NBC's White House Correspondent, to take the top job as main news anchor. However, he turned down the offer and took over as sole anchor on the NBC Nightly News. Jennings was then selected, starting on September 5, 1983, and has become a very influential TV personality.
Jennings is sometimes accused of "liberal bias" by certain right-wing groups, such as the Media Research Center.[1] (http://www.mrc.org/realitycheck/2003/fax20030903pj.asp) However, supporters of Jennings contend that most critical reports of him consist of inaccuracies and/or out-of-context quotes. One critic is former ABC News reporter Peter Collins, who alleges that Jennings rewrote his piece on the 10th anniversary of the Sandinistas to make the account more favorable to the Sandinistas.
Jennings became the only lead anchor left in evening network news to have continued in the job for over 20 years, after Tom Brokaw stepped down from his post in December 2004 and Dan Rather in January 2005.
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