ABC’s Charles Gibson inherited a “World News Tonight” staff last May that was reeling from the death of longtime anchor Peter Jennings and Bob Woodruff’s brush with death in Iraq.
“This news department was battered and stunned by two traumatic events,” Gibson says. “I was worried. How would we turn people’s attention away?”
The solution came as it often does in the news business: a big story. For Gibson, the tumultuous midterm elections in November did the trick. ABC’s election night coverage got producers, editors and correspondents “back at cruising speed and looking forward rather than backward,” he says. “Afterward, I noticed a bit of a bounce in people’s steps.”
Last week’s ratings showed that although “World News” continues to place second to “NBC Nightly News” (9 million viewers to 9.8 million), it is the only broadcast to grow its audience year to year.
And last week marked the 10th time in 12 weeks that the gap between “World News” and third-place “CBS Evening News” (7.4 million) has exceeded 1 million viewers.
Good news for ABC but not for CBS, which has bet $15 million a year – anchor Katie Couric’s salary – that the star power she enjoyed at NBC’s “Today” would rub off at night. So far, that hasn’t happened, but Couric and her producers say building a newscast takes time.
At “Today,” Couric trounced Gibson routinely on “Good Morning America” for 10 years. Now that the tables are turned, Gibson will say little about her. “I think it’s terrific that we have a female news anchor,” he allows.
“I don’t know what was in the minds of CBS people,” he says. “I just know what the philosophy is here. Our correspondent corps is a major factor.
“I’ve come to think that what we do in the first three minutes is not as important as the impression you give viewers at the end of 30 minutes, when they turn it off and think, ‘Was that a half-hour well invested?’ ”
He is far more engaged in the newsgathering process at “World News” than he was on “GMA,” probably because in his 18 years anchoring “GMA” he had learned the routine.
“I still read the research every night, but when you go to college, in the freshman year you don’t do time management very well,” he says. “You read every page and you kill yourself. But by senior year you know what you’re doing.”
