Al-Zarqawi Killed: Relying On A.M. Talent

This morning I noted that Charles Gibson let Diane Sawyer and Robin Roberts handle the Al-Zarqawi news. “When news breaks before 9am, the GMA anchors on duty handle it,” an insider says. “With Diane Sawyer on GMA there wasn’t even a discussion of bringing Charlie in.”

An e-mailer adds this: “As the morning anchors, their main job is to deliver the news in the morning. If they brought Charlie back on a day he wasn’t supposed to be there, it would look as if the female duo was incapable of handling the hard news… Plus, all the other morning news shows only featured their morning talent and not their evening anchors.”

> Update: 2:38pm: “Charlie said this AM when he could make it for Regis and Kelly that Diane wasn’t even supposed to be on GMA this AM and they called her in — showing that they didn’t have confidence in Roberts/Wier!”