Peter Jennings

Is it just possible that Peter Jennings would have been more honored, had the Walt Disney Co. taken all the money it lavished on full-page In Memoriam ads, and on the commercial-free two-hour prime-time tribute to Jennings, and spent it instead on maintaining or even increasing the number of ABC's overseas bureaus?

There are two sure ways to know that, despite his recent adoption of American citizenship, Jennings was in fact a Canadian. One, gleaned from the many words spoken about him on ABC's air this week, is that, having gotten a job primarily by dint of his facial handsomeness and vocal mellifluousness, he felt guilty/obligated/responsible enough to make serious attempts--his reading, his traveling, his insistence on full-length documentaries in the age of mini-everything--to "deserve" the position of chief anchor. That's certainly not an American attitude.

There is another way to discern his heritage, it will appear here next week.