The ABC's of Diane's Deal

David Montgomery / Getty Images Diane Sawyer finally got her dream job. Rebecca Dana reports on the palace intrigue—including a "livid" Charles Gibson—that led to her coronation. Plus, her life in pictures.

There’s a story people at ABC News tell about the morning of Sept. 11, 2001. Diane Sawyer and Charlie Gibson were cozily ensconced in the Good Morning America studio when the first plane crashed into the World Trade Center. Being seasoned newsmen both, they sprang into action, covering the tragedy side by side for about 10 minutes until Peter Jennings—stately, stoic, impeccably tailored—settled into his anchor chair.

For the rest of the morning, Sawyer rarely saw the red light of a live camera trained her way. Surrounded by flowers on the cheery Good Morning America set, she waited for her chance to go on. “Diane’s available,” producers said. “She’s standing by.” Nothing.

Charlie Gibson made no direct reference to Sawyer in his public statement about his departure, and a source close to the anchor described him as “livid” that Sawyer is succeeding him.

For two decades, Sawyer has been standing by at ABC, waiting for her chance to run the show. Now, at last, she finally will. It’s not the prize it once was, but it’s hers: anchor of World News, the once towering, now considerably diminished evening broadcast, which, like its competitors on NBC and CBS, keeps soldiering on in the face of looming irrelevance.

If nothing else, Sawyer’s new job carries with it the promise of sweet revenge, a chance to finally win a ratings race against her old rival Katie Couric, who used to beat her every morning as anchor of NBC’s Today and who capped off the winning streak in 2006 by becoming the first ever solo female anchor of a national network newscast. ABC News President David Westin told me he offered Sawyer the job last week, and she called him at seven Tuesday evening and said, “It’s a go.”

How much of a “go” it is for ABC remains to be seen. Good Morning America is the only news program that makes serious money for the network, and Sawyer’s anchoring is pretty much the only thing keeping it from drifting off into deep space. Come January, she’ll leave behind three talented but utterly chemistry-free co-hosts to hold down the lucrative broadcast for the network, owned by Disney, which is not exactly a charitable enterprise. Sawyer’s new gig at World News, by contrast, may be the most prestigious seat in the house, but on days when there hasn’t been a national triumph or tragedy, it’s really just 22 minutes of old news, watched by 7 million old people—and hardly a cash cow.

View Our Gallery of Diane's Life in Photos

For his part, Gibson left as he came: humbly and with lots of admirers. When he took the reins in 2006, after the ill-fated pairing of youngsters Bob Woodruff and Elizabeth Vargas fell apart six months after it began, he told me he got the job by happenstance. “I was the guy still there by the candy machine,” he said (with no mention of the gal standing there next to him).

Gibson didn’t do interviews this time, but said in a statement that his “heart is full of gratitude.” Although they worked closely for more than a decade, Gibson makes no direct reference to Sawyer in the statement, and a source close to the departing anchor described him as “livid” that she’s succeeding him. An ABC executive called this “nonsense,” and Westin said he told Gibson from their earliest conversations about his retirement that Sawyer would be his replacement.

No other anchors were even considered for the job. Westin said it’s too early to predict how Sawyer’s presence will change the show, but that after his abortive earlier effort to bring in a younger pair of anchors, he’s given up trying to reinvent the evening newscast. He praised Sawyer’s long career, highlighting her interviews with all the presidents since George H.W. Bush and her documentaries on the American underclass.