Five years ago this week network news anchors, correspondents and producers (including yours truly) were in Rome covering the death of Pope John Paul II and, later, the election of Pope Benedict XVI.

One noticeable absence, was ABC’s Peter Jennings. On April 5, 2005 we learned why. On that night’s “World News Tonight” Jennings told his audience he’d been diagnosed with late stage lung cancer. It would be his final broadcast. The cancer would take his life four months later.

Last night on “World News” Diane Sawyer reported on news from the CDC showing lung cancer rates are dropping and the smoking rate among the young is at its lowest ever.

Sawyer’s report after the jump…

> From the TVNewser Archives — April 5, 2005:

Jennings Note to Staffers: “I Have Been Diagnosed With Lung Cancer”

Comments from Competitors

Westin’s Note to Staff: “Peter’s Been Given A Tough Assignment”

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NBC’s coverage of the Opening Ceremony of the Vancouver Winter games did not begin the way so many have in the past — with celebration and hope. Instead Bob Costas and Matt Lauer opened NBC’s coverage with the somber news of the death this morning of Georgian luger 21-year-old Nodar Kumaritashvili during his final practice run.

Costas and Lauer then turned things over to NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams who reported in depth on the crash that took Kumaritashvili’s life and on the track which itself has become a news story — for its speed, dangerous for several sliders and deadly today.

But the NBC News incorporation into the Opening Ceremony coverage didn’t end there. In the second segment NBC Newsman Tom Brokaw reported on the U.S-Canada relationship, at one point flashing pictures of famous Canadians, including his old friend and competitor, longtime ABC World News Tonight anchor Peter Jennings.

• Related: Olympic Luge Competitor Killed; Videos Quickly Pulled from YouTube

This evening was Charlie Gibson‘s final broadcast on ABC’s “World News.”

Gibson announced he would be retiring from the program and from ABC News in September. Diane Sawyer, who ended her run at “Good Morning America” last Friday, will take over the program starting Monday.

“It’s hard to walk away from what I honestly think is the best job in the world,” Gibson said at the end of the newscast. “There is so much to do in the years I have left, I don’t want to miss any of it. It has been a privilege and an honor to be here, working with reporters, producers and staff for whom I have unbounded respect. This is, for them, as it has been for me, as it was for Frank Reynolds, as it was for Peter Jennings, a labor of love.”

He also stressed how important objectivity is for his business and said,”It is what we strive for each night. It is my hope that is what you have looked for and that is what you have found when you come to abc’s ‘World News.’ You’ll find it with my pal Diane Sawyer, who assumes this chair on Monday.”

“That is ‘World News’ for this Friday,” he said at the close. “I’m Charlie Gibson, and I hope you’ve had a good day. I’ve had so many good days here.”

ABC then ran a montage featuring President Obama, former Presidents W. Bush, Clinton, H.W. Bush, and Carter as well as a host of comedians, musicians, actors, athletes, and many fellow journalists, including Joan Lunden, Katie Couric, and Brian Williams, sending their wishes. The broadcast concluded with an emotional scene of Gibson sitting at his desk, surrounded by the applause of the ABC News staff. (Video below, more photos after the jump.)

More: After the broadcast, we hear that around 150 staffers — including ABC News President David Westin — as well as Gibson’s wife and daughters gathered for a champagne toast.

“World News” EP Jon Banner delivered his toast to Gibson, describing what he meant to the show and to the staff personally. “After all you have accomplished professionally — as we re-lived over the past few days — you never forgot where you came from,” Banner said, according to someone in the crowd. “You not only taught us right from wrong in journalism, you taught us right from wrong in life. And for that, we are forever grateful.”

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On the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall, TVNewser takes a look back at the broadcast network newscasts from that day, November 9th, 1989.

NBC’s Tom Brokaw reports for “Nightly News” from Berlin:

Peter Jennings delivers the “astonishing news” for ABC (h/t Mediaite):

Dan Rather stands atop the wall, reporting for CBS News the next day:

You can also check out some of Richard Blystone‘s reports for CNN here.

CBS’s Steve Kroft has been named the 2010 Paul White Award winner by The Radio Television Digital News Association (formerly The Radio and Television News Directors Association). Kroft will receive the award April 12 in Las Vegas, during the RTDNA annual convention.

“Steve Kroft’s practice of our craft stands as a benchmark providing substance, depth, public service and thoughtful style,” said Ed Esposito, chairman of the award committee, in a press release.

Previous Paul White Award winners include Bob Schieffer, Ted Koppel, Tom Brokaw, Dan Rather, Christiane Amanpour, Peter Jennings, and Edward R. Murrow.

• Earlier: Steve Kroft, Matt Lauer Honored

• More: CBS News and Sports president Sean McManus‘ email to staff, after the jump…

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TVNewser has learned ABC News will announce today that Charlie Gibson will leave “World News” in January and that Diane Sawyer will be named the new anchor of the network’s evening newscast.

Gibson has been the anchor of “World News” since May 2006, after the pairing of Elizabeth Vargas and Bob Woodruff was broken up when Woodruff was seriously wounded in an IED attack in Iraq.

Woodruff and Vargas were named co-anchors of the program in Dec. 2005 after the death of longtime anchor Peter Jennings.

DEVELOPING

> More: ABC News tells us Gibson is announcing his retirement from ABC News at which point Sawyer will take over the broadcast.

Click continued to read the emails from ABC News president David Westin: “Diane’s presence will certainly be missed on Good Morning America. But we are fortunate that both Charlie and Diane will remain with their current broadcasts for the next four months..”

…and the email Charlie Gibson sent to his staff: “It has not been an easy decision to make. This has been my professional home for almost 35 years. And I love this news department, and all who work in it, to the depths of my soul.”

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In his column today, Howard Kurtz looks at the death of Walter Cronkite through the deaths of “two other journalistic giants” Peter Jennings and Tim Russert and asks: “Is the news business changing into some alien form that betrays their legacy? Or is such shorthand simply our way of saying they set an unmatchable standard?”

Perhaps the tributes are ultimately about personality. Jennings was the smooth, witty and urbane narrator of events. Russert was the blue-collar Buffalo boy who feasted on politics because he loved the game. Cronkite, the product of an earlier era, had that plainspoken, avuncular delivery that made you feel it was your friend registering shock at JFK’s death, or exclaiming “oh boy” as the Eagle landed on the lunar surface.

Today on the mediabistro.com Morning Media Menu we had generations of journalists, as CNN senior analyst Jeffrey Toobin (or, Jeffrey R. Toobin — check the podcast) and his mother, Marlene Sanders, joined us. Earlier we wrote about Toobin following in his mother’s footsteps by participating in Inauguration coverage.

Sanders covered the 1964 Inauguration for ABC News, along with a young Peter Jennings (both correspondents had just joined the network four months earlier).

“There was no Wolf Blitzer holding the whole thing together, it was just Peter and me,” said Sanders.

We asked Sanders what the difference between the excitement this year and in years past. “Nothing like it,” she said. “The second inauguration I did was Richard Nixon so you could hardly say there was any joy in Mudville over that one.”

“Or maybe that’s just you, Mom,” said Toobin.

Toobin also talked about the big change in coverage. “What’s different is the amount of space to fill…You were dealing with a very small news hole,” said Toobin.

Also discussed: Sanders’ “motherly indignation” over Toobin’s Tuesday airtime, whether Chief Justice John Roberts will recover from his oath flub, how Sanders opened the door for future women journalists (she was the first woman to anchor an evening newscast) and more.

You can listen to the podcast live every morning at 9amET on BlogTalkRadio.com/mediabistro and call in at 646-929-0321. You can also subscribe to the iTunes feed of the podcast by clicking the “iTunes” button.

Who is this current CNN correspondent with his mom (a former tvnewser herself)?



It’s Jeffrey Toobin. TVNewser obtained an email Toobin sent to CNN staff with some publicity photos taken around the time his mother, Marlene Sanders, was a co-anchor for LBJ’s inauguration with Peter Jennings for ABC. Toobin is reporting from Lafayette Park today for CNN. Click continued to see another photo and Toobin’s email…

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TV Week’s Michele Greppi writes in this week’s “The Insider” about a tvnewser noticeably absent in Andy Rooney‘s essay last Sunday on 60 Minutes.

When Rooney gave his list of people who made TV news “good and reliable,” Rooney lists Edward R. Murrow, Walter Cronkite, Tom Brokaw and Peter Jennings. Not listed — Rooney’s former colleague, Dan Rather.

Writes Greppi:

The Insider wishes she could report whether that omission was merely underscoring what CBS News insiders say is Mr. Rooney’s longstanding distaste for Mr. Rather, or whether the omission was a judicious move, given that Mr. Rather is putting CBS News through the legal wringer. But her request for a conversation with Mr. Rooney was met with an official statement that “Andy Rooney’s essay last night speaks for itself.”