The Anchor

With the ascendancy of Charles Gibson to the “World News Tonight” anchor seat this week, ABC News hopes to bring an end to a months-long streak of bad luck. Last August longtime host Peter Jennings retired after being diagnosed with lung cancer. The network passed over Gibson, a veteran journalist and cohost of “Good Morning America,” hiring instead two younger replacement anchors, Bob Woodruff and Elizabeth Vargas.

Three weeks into the new configuration Woodruff sustained serious head injuries in a roadside bombing in Iraq. With Vargas as the sole anchor, the program floundered. Two weeks ago it briefly dipped to third place behind NBC's “Nightly News” and the “CBS Evening News,” which has flourished under Bob Schieffer, who will hand the broadcast over to Katie Couric in the fall. (The ABC program has since edged out CBS to take the second slot.)

Gibson, 63, will begin his anchor duties next week. Vargas is due to give birth to her second child in August and says she has decided to return only to her anchor job at “20/20” after her maternity leave. Gibson, who in more than 30 years at ABC News has interviewed seven U.S. presidents, is widely viewed as a safe pick to lead a broadcast that brings in some 7.71 million viewers a night. He spoke with NEWSWEEK’s Brian Braiker about his new job. Excerpts:

NEWSWEEK: You’ll get to be in the anchor seat for the 2008 election. Are you happy about that?

Charles Gibson: Yeah, I am. It’s going to be a fascinating election. I can’t remember the last time there hasn’t been a natural candidate in either party.

Any plans for foreign news?

Peter [Jennings] and I used to have long talks about the fact it is, after all, “ World News Tonight.” One of the problems of course is that Iraq is eating up so much of the overseas budget right now. It limits you in what there is to spend elsewhere. But it’s a very important part of the broadcast, so it’s something I think we need in mind.

Will you get out from behind the desk and do any traveling?

Not to the extent that they were talking about with Elizabeth and Bob. We haven’t had those kinds of discussions in meetings yet. It’s somewhat more limited by the fact that I am just one person, but I am more traditional in my approach. I’m an old codger. If I can do anything, it’s just to stabilize the broadcast and calm everybody down. Presuming I don’t get hit by a truck tomorrow, we’re sort of steady-as-she-goes.

You used the words “old codger.” What is ABC saying about its viewership or what it wants its viewership to be by putting you in the chair?

We’ve had no discussions about that. I’ve always maintained—probably from purposes of self-interest, and I’ve only done it as I’ve gotten into greater maturity—that people do want to look to somebody who’s a little older to provide news.

Well, wasn’t the plan with Woodruff and Vargas to get a younger audience?

It was. And who knows, it could have been right. I had some understanding and appreciation of what David [Westin, president of ABC News] was trying to do. Indeed, I defended it. I think if you want to do that, it’s an interesting new paradigm. I wasn’t certain that the time had come for it, but he [was]. It was just an experiment that never had a chance to come to fruition.

You’re certainly cut more from the Bob Schieffer cloth than the Katie Couric cloth—

Well, I wear suits. [ Laughs .] I don’t know what you’re implying here.

[ Laughs .] What are your thoughts about going up against her?

I ran into Bob at a ballgame on Saturday night, and I was complimenting him on the fact that they had great success with his period of time at CBS. He said, “All I really did was try to get the emphasis off the anchor and get it on the reporters and the news gathering that goes on. We’d had too much focus on Dan [Rather].” I really would like to do the same to the extent that I can. I hate the fact that this is going to be viewed as a fight between the three [anchors].

Both CBS and NBC recently ousted longtime presidents. Given the length of time it took to hire you as anchor and the dip in ratings, is it possible that ABC News might seek out new leadership, as well?

I hope not, since the guy who’s president of ABC News just hired me to do the program. Some other guy who comes in might not like the cut of my jib. This is a time to issue a ringing endorsement of David Westin’s leadership.

There’s some speculation that Elizabeth Vargas was pushed out.

One of the things I said to Elizabeth yesterday is that it is dreadfully difficult to watch your job shopped day after day after day in the press. It really does get to you. We’re not impervious to this stuff. Also, I don’t want to spend a lot of time talking about her medical condition, but this has not been an easy pregnancy for her. Elizabeth was musing about whether she’d return from maternity leave to begin with. To my knowledge she told David that she wanted to go away from the broadcast.

But in pursuing this job did you not want to do it solo anyway?

I said to David from the beginning that it’s never made any sense to me to have two people sitting at the anchor desk. There was a unique situation with Huntley and Brinkley when the genre was first being developed. But two people sitting next to one another in a 22-minute newscast never made a lot of sense to me. I just think it should be one person. Which doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have people, if you want to call them coanchors, out in the field doing X and Y and Z. And David’s concept of Elizabeth and Bob was that one of them would be out all the time. That’s fine.

What was Diane Sawyer’s reaction?

I think you can’t be in these news departments without thinking, “I wonder if I can do that job.” I think she thought about it. I wouldn’t leave without her blessing, and I hope she wouldn’t leave without mine, which I certainly would give. That she gave it her blessing was enormously important. I think inevitably she thought about it and had discussions about it. But to the extent that she truly wanted it, I don’t know.

And you’re there at least until 2008?

This is open ended, we don’t know how long this will last. If I did it as long as Peter did it, for 22 years, I’d be 85. That’s probably a little long. But, hey look at Mike Wallace.

Yeah, you could work for "60 Minutes."

The actuarial tables are such that in the continuum of life I’m getting past lunch.