Charles Gibson Threatened To Quit If He Didn’t Get The WNT Anchor Chair

“Charlie the Conqueror” — Joe Hagan‘s New York must-read of how Charles Gibson ascended to the World News Tonight throne — will probably be the talk of the TV town today.

Here’s what we knew: David Westin offered Gibson the WNT job back in December, and the anchor said no to the two-year deal. Here’s what we didn’t know: When it was time to negotiate again, after Bob Woodruff‘s injury, Gibson asked for more money and a longer contract — and “he told Westin he’d quit if he didn’t get the job — and he wanted it alone, without Vargas.” Diane Sawyer would have loved the job, but she didn’t threaten to quit.

Hagan tells the rest of the tale: “If Sawyer did get the job over Gibson — and Gibson made good on his promise to bolt — that would leave a smoking crater where Good Morning America once was, a major blow to ABC News. A GMA stripped of both stars was a risk that Westin could not take; Sawyer almost certainly would have known that and realized that if she had demanded the anchor job, he may not have been in the position to give it to her. Instead he had to set up a situation in which she decided not to pursue the job. Which is more or less how she tells it. ‘Everyone always says the morning drives the news these days, but you can’t come out of hard news and be in this business and not be interested in World News Tonight,’ says Sawyer. ‘But for me, not if it costs this network Charlie Gibson. Period.'”

Read the rest…