The call ushering me into the ranks of on-air network news reporters came on January 22, 1998. On the other end of the phone was Peter Jennings.

At the time, I was ABC’s on-site producer at the White House. It was day two of the fast-unfolding Monica Lewinsky story, and Jennings was preparing for a live hour-long special devoted to the controversy swirling around President Clinton.

I was sandwiched in ABC’s small White House booth between two titans of the presidential beat, Sam Donaldson and Ann Compton. Jennings, who had just finished his evening newscast, called down, telling Ms. Compton that she and Mr. Donaldson should be prepared to join him on the prime time special. “And Josh, too,” Jennings instructed.

“And what?” I thought to myself.

My on-camera abilities were untested, but Jennings knew that in the preceding year I had logged more time in the West Wing and on the road with Mr. Clinton’s entourage than nearly anyone else on the White House beat. On the phone, Jennings was casual and professional as he outlined what he wanted me to discuss. I was all of 27, but the anchor and news icon treated me as a colleague, something that always stuck with me.

With borrowed makeup and more than a touch of trepidation, I headed to the North Lawn, where I stood between Mr. Donaldson and Ms. Compton. Through our earpieces, we heard the program begin. “This is an ABC News Special – Crisis in the White House,” an announcer intoned, as snippets were played from the dizzying events of the day. The correspondent who followed the investigation for ABC, Jackie Judd, opened the broadcast with a rundown of the latest developments. Next stop would be the White House, where we were about to get a glimpse of Jennings’s mischievous tendency to tweak his on-air talent.

As the camera zoomed in on the most senior member of our motley trio, Mr. Donaldson, Jennings said, “Josh, let’s start with you.” The breach of protocol startled Mr. Donaldson, the cameraman, and me, but it was live network television and it seemed best to say something. I managed to share a couple of rather mundane observations about the impact the story was having on the president’s staff. “Especially the young staffers, Peter, were stunned by this,” I said.

My prime time debut lacked polish, but Jennings’s imprimatur went a long way at ABC. Within a few months, I was taping stories for local stations, and within a year or two, I officially joined the network’s stable of correspondents.

My last opportunity to work closely with the longtime anchor was in 2003 as the outbreak of SARS, and the Chinese government’s inept response to it, terrorized Asia and the world. I was stationed in Beijing, and Jennings wanted a story on how Chinese leaders had managed to harness nationalism to turn the SARS fiasco into a boon for the Communist Party.

As Jennings marked up one draft of my script after another, I, like other correspondents, became frustrated. On the other hand, this was a story that “World News Tonight” simply would not have done without the insistence of Jennings, who spent more than a decade as a foreign correspondent. To put the party’s modern-day propaganda in perspective, Jennings even insisted on dusting off a tape of a 1960s propaganda musical, “East Is Red.” On that night, the high school dropout-turned-anchorman managed to give both me and viewers across America a history lesson, and one about a foreign country no less.

Some will be tempted to view Jennings as a partisan in an ideological war over the content of network news. I’ll leave that debate to others. However, I would note that the veteran anchorman was, according to reliable sources, a fan of this young newspaper. On at least one occasion, he took a story straight from The New York Sun’s front page and assigned it to one of the network’s most senior Washington correspondents.

At present, the true struggle for the soul of American television news is not over ideology, but between substance and schlock, between facts and frivolousness. In that fight, Jennings was always on the right side. As budget-driven pressure to scale back ABC’s newsgathering efforts overseas mounted in recent years, Jennings’s stature and the fear of his wrath stood as the only serious obstacles to the complete dismantling of the network’s storied foreign bureaus.

It is in that role, as a bulwark against the dumbing down of American television, that Peter Jennings will be most sorely missed, and difficult, probably impossible, to replace.

Mr. Gerstein is The New York Sun’s national reporter. From 1995 until 2003, he worked for ABC News in varying positions, including as an investigative producer, White House correspondent, and Beijing correspondent.