Diane Sawyer, co-host of ABC’s “Good Morning America,” was named the new solo anchor of ABC’s “World News” on Tuesday, after Charles Gibson unexpectedly decided to step down. Ms. Sawyer had previously been passed over for the position twice, and the decision to offer it to her this week was, according to ABC, entirely at the insistence of Mr. Gibson. President of ABC News David Westin was opposed to the choice, and stated in an interview, “This is not the result I wanted.”[1] The change will be effective in January.
The promotion of Ms. Sawyer to leader of ABC’s network news division has fundamentally altered the traditionally male-dominated and male-anchored evening news. Only three years after Katie Couric became the first female solo anchor of the evening news, two of the three main broadcast network news anchors will be women – Katie Couric of CBS and Diane Sawyer of ABC. Richard Wald, a former news executive at ABC and NBC, commented on this change: “You’re going to have, for the first time ever, two women competing as solo anchors in a television framework that just — within living memory — sort of destroyed every woman who tried to do it.”[2] Barbara Walters, who was the first woman to co-anchor a news broadcast in 1976, praised the promotion of Ms. Sawyer to solo anchor in an interview on Wednesday: “I think it’s just a great day.”[3]
For more information, see http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/03/business/media/03anchor.html?ref=todayspaper
[1] Bill Carter, Brian Stelter “At ABC, an Anchor Shift; for T.V., an Image Shift” The New York Times (September 3, 2009), p.A1
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid.
