ABC gives Jennings a last hurrah

Last year Peter Jennings had passed away from lung cancer but a year after his death he is to appear in a documentary about AIDS in the black community. This project was something he was working on while he was being treated for his condition but he passed away before this project was completed. Here's a little something about his appearance in this documentary...

He is shown midway through the documentary conducting a discussion among HIV-positive black men. It was recorded a few weeks before Jennings' cancer was diagnosed in spring 2005. Jennings was dressed in a denim shirt and looked pale, with a barely noticeable catch in his voice.

At one point, a man tells Jennings that he never told his wife he also had sex with men and although she's now infected, she accepts it.

''Doesn't have much choice, does she?'' Jennings retorts.
...
Some at ABC wondered whether it would strike viewers as strange to see Jennings a year after he died, so they argued for cutting the segment out. There was thought given to keeping comments from the round-table and cutting Jennings out but it was agreed his interchanges with the men were interesting.

''It was a content-based decision,'' Yellin said.

Moran tells viewers at the outset of the documentary and before the roundtable that Jennings was included, to avoid confusion.

It's not exactly important that Peter Jennings is in this documentary as much as it is important that I put this documentary out there so that you may watch it.

Last week Mary Mitchell did a column related to this subject. She did a column about the AIDS epidemic in the black community and its main ally, homophobia. Oh and she even has a blog, this will be interesting.