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ERIC DEGGANSPeter Jennings' meeting at USF ran the gamut from the war in Iraq to the public's perception of the media.
TAMPA - The microphones cut out occasionally and about a quarter of the 350 or so people expected never showed up.
Still, ABC anchor Peter Jennings was all smiles Wednesday night after hosting an hourlong town hall meeting at the University of South Florida, fielding questions from the public on everything from the media's coverage of the Iraq war to the implications of the Terri Schiavo case.
"I wish we'd done two hours," said Jennings, minutes before leaving to catch a flight to Dallas. "What I always end up saying after I've been on the road for a few days is, "Those guys in New York don't know what they're talking about,' even though I'm the principal editor. You cannot go back without having your view and your viewpoint freshened."
The event, videotaped in an auditorium at the university's College of Public Health, capped a two-day stay in which Jennings anchored his World News Tonight from the Tampa Museum of Art and visited Iraq war commander Gen. John Abizaid at MacDill Air Force Base. It will air on ABC affiliate WFTS-Ch. 28 at 12:30 p.m. Sunday.
On Wednesday, the anchor was flanked by a panel that included WFLA-970 AM personality Jack Harris, Tampa Tribune columnist Daniel Ruth, USF political science professor Susan MacManus, WFTS anchor Brendan McLaughlin and Karen Brown Dunlap, president of the Poynter Institute for Media Studies, which owns the St. Petersburg Times.
Topic A: media coverage of the war in Iraq.
Mary Ellen Harlan, 62, of Tampa asked why journalists don't cover veterans issues more often - a question Jennings used to ask about the government's ban against media showing the arrival of soldiers' coffins from Iraq.
"It strikes me as sheer political propaganda," said the Tribune's Ruth. "If you're the commander in chief, you have a moral obligation to go out and welcome back the dead."
MacManus noted polls showing more Americans think war coverage is too negative. "The public is starting to pick the media they're going to listen to, and tune all the rest out," she said.
A question about how media outlets label sources prompted Jennings to raise an issue of terminology: "The U.S. is occupying Iraq ... Why wouldn't we call (insurgents opposing our presence there) freedom fighters?"
But WFTS' McLaughlin cautioned careful use of such pejorative terms as "freedom fighters" or "terrorist."
"We're involved in two wars; the war on terrorism and the war in Iraq," he noted. "I'm not sure you want to blur that line by using the same term (for all U.S. foes)."
And though McLaughlin suggested viewers may blame the media for delivering bad news, the Poynter Institute's Dunlap noted news consumers may also criticize war coverage because "there are (instances) of not telling the story well, or not telling it accurately or missing the story."
WFLA's Harris drew applause by suggesting youths fresh from high school should join the military for six months "to teach (them) discipline." And Jennings fielded a question about the growing corporatization of media by noting ABC owner Disney "seems to know it would be profoundly in their interest not to interfere with the news department."
But Ruth earned the evening's loudest applause at the session's end, offering a blunt answer to a student who asked how the media could encourage young people to get more involved with politics.
"It's not my responsibility to make you a better citizen," he said. "It's your responsibility to make yourself (one)."