"That's Entertainment!
Will ABC's Jennings look for Big Foot on his next special?
Denver Post
Peter Jennings takes up UFOs tonight. "By fronting this exercise, Jennings has taken sides in an uncomfortable way," writes Joanne Ostrow. "He has thrown in with the corporate bean counters who would rather have their anchor host a two-hour prime-time marathon about UFOs during February than, say, a straightforward, in-depth analysis of Social Security. At a time when the network is weighing the best way to dump 'Nightline,' serious journalism has all the appeal of a white paper on the trade deficit. UFOs are more fun."
Jennings' UFO special is mystifying in itself
By Maureen Ryan
Tribune staff reporter
Published February 24, 2005
Why is Peter Jennings hosting a two-hour special about UFOs?
It seems distinctly odd for the ABC news anchor to be hosting "UFOs: Seeing Is Believing" (7 p.m. Thursday, WLS-Ch. 7), the kind of special one expects to see on cable TV, sandwiched between a Loch Ness monster special and a crop-circle expose.
Maybe the anchor settled on UFOs as the kind of topic unlikely to garner the attention (and possibly the wrath) of the self-appointed media critics of the blogosphere.
But nothing on the plodding Jennings special will be news to even casual viewers of "The X-Files." Many eyewitnesses who swear they've seen unidentified flying objects, bright lights in the sky, etc. tell their stories, and truth be told, their tales sound convincing. There's even footage of an array of lights over Phoenix that's as mystifying as it is tantalizing.
As an overall recap of UFO history in the 20th Century, the special is reasonably informative and competently assembled.
But stringing together talking-head footage from true believers, hopeful scientists and outright skeptics doesn't do much to advance our understanding or knowledge of possible space visitors on Earth.
More to the point, given all the pressing issues facing our world today and the shrinking budgets of many network news operations, the idea that ABC News and Jennings would devote two hours to this rather lightweight subject is the most mystifying thing about it. |
