Amy Robach is getting better every day.
Two years after doctors diagnosed breast cancer–revealed after she reluctantly underwent an on-air mammogram–the Good Morning America news anchor recounts in beautiful detail her punishing experience in the new memoir Better.
The title was inspired by a poem Robach’s daughter Ava, then 10, wrote during her grueling eight rounds of chemotherapy. This is how the poem concludes:
She will be strong, stronger than ever.
She’s a fighter just like her daughter.
It has to get worse before it gets better…
and trust me it will get better.
So last night, ABC News threw Robach a book party atop the Empire Hotel in Manhattan. The event was packed with Robach’s family–husband Andrew Shue, her two daughters and her parents–as well as current colleagues from ABC News and past colleagues from NBC News and MSNBC. “Who else could bring warring factions of ABC and NBC together?” asked ABC News president James Goldston in his remarks to the crowd.
Robach’s GMA colleagues George Stephanopoulos, Lara Spencer, Ginger Zee and Jesse Palmer were there; David Muir dropped by after World News Tonight. We chatted about his televised audience with Pope Francis in August, ahead of the Pope’s U.S. visit. Fluent in Spanish, Muir still studied up for months so he could feel comfortable talking to the Argentine pope. After the event each person in the ABC News entourage was presented a rosary blessed by the pope. Muir says Francis joked with him, “did I give you two?”
We also spotted GMA EP Michael Corn chatting with Today show EP Don Nash. Is a morning show crossover episode in the works? “Good Morning Today” Corn joked. Nash thought “Today in America” sounded better. The top two morning shows are currently in a battle for first place in the younger demographic in the highly competitive morning show race.
But competitiveness was put aside–mostly–last night. The Today show’s Savannah Guthrie chatted with GMA’s Sara Haines; Rick Kaplan, former ABC News, CNN and MSNBC executive caught up with ABC News svp Tom Cibrowski; CNN’s New Day EP Javier Morgado (making it a trifecta of morning show EPs) huddled with ABC News correspondent Gio Benitez. Also in attendance: Today’s Hoda Kotb, ABC News svp Barbara Fedida, GMA and The View co-host Paula Faris, 20/20’s Elizabeth Vargas, who is penning her own memoir due next year, Dan Abrams, Michael Strahan and Dr. Richard Besser; also Contessa Brewer and Kristine Johnson, Robach’s friends and former MSNBC colleagues.
ABC News president James Goldston and Amy Robach
David Muir and Amy Robach
Dan Abrams, Michael Feldman, Savannah Guthrie and George Stephanopoulos