Dale Jennings in The Newsreader’s Season Two 💙🌟🤴🏼
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In 1986, Dale went from being a great producer, to an okay reporter, to the male newsreader of News At Six, just as he had always wanted to be.
In 1987, he was firmly in the hosting chair with Helen by his side, and by the start of 1988, he was at that desk solo, Helen having resigned sensationally on air.
When Geoff had rung him in January 1988, having said goodbye to his viewers for the final time and cancelling his show ‘The Walters Report,’ he handed the baton and crown down to Dale, appointing him the new King of News.
As we saw in Season Three, it wouldn’t be long before cracks would show in Dale’s reign of television. His old-school lilt on air, which he had modelled off watching Geoff on air over his life, didn’t resonate with viewers who were looking for the grit that the 1990s would bring.
No longer resonating with audiences, struggling to maintain his image and under enormous pressure and intimidation from Lindsay, Dale reached breaking point, and it was his sensational final broadcast that gave him the freedom to mostly step away from the screen and become who he needed to be.
There’s something to this. Even if you want something badly, there’s a possibility that something might not be for you. You can want something with every fibre in your body and being, but in time, life will lead you towards not what you want, but instead what you need.
I hope you enjoyed this selection of images of Dale from Season Two, and a question for you. We knew him between the ages of 31 and 35, but what do you imagine Dale would be doing today at 72 years old? I’m hoping he had a quietly healthy and fulfilling life of roving reporting and perhaps returning back to the behind the scenes of news, and finding love, whether with Helen or someone else 💙
