Daily Inspiration Quote by Peter Jennings

Jennings is doing the oldest, hardest trick in broadcast journalism: selling neutrality as both a principle and a product. The line is calibrated to sound modest ("I don't think"), empirical ("looks carefully"), and consensual ("anybody"), as if bias is something a reasonable viewer can simply inspect and dismiss. That’s not just rhetoric; it’s brand protection. In an era when network news was still trying to occupy the national hearth, credibility depended on being seen as above the partisan mess, the calm adult voice narrating the day.

The subtext is a quiet rebuke to critics who treat coverage like a vote tally: if you believe we’re left or right, you weren’t paying attention. "Looks carefully" isn’t accidental. It suggests that accusations of slant are the result of selective viewing or motivated outrage, not patterns in framing, sourcing, or story choice. It also shifts the burden of proof away from the newsroom and onto the audience: objectivity becomes a perception management problem rather than an institutional discipline.

Context matters because Jennings spoke from within a media ecosystem that was about to fracture. As cable talk and partisan outlets grew, the middle lane got narrower, and "we’re not left or right" became less a description than a defensive posture. The quote reveals the paradox of mainstream news: the claim of neutrality is essential to authority, but the act of deciding what counts as "careful" looking is itself a kind of power.