TVGuide.com has a Q&A with Charlie Gibson:
| TVGuide.com: Now that ABC News turned to you — and you look at the success of Bob Schieffer on CBS and Brian Williams on NBC, who are pretty traditional in how they approach the news — do you think evening newscasts really need to be reinvented? Charles Gibson: Well, I think ABC News President David Westin and I would differ on that. I don’t know. I gave a speech not long ago in which I said there’s a whole generation of people coming along who are a whole lot more technically savvy than I am. I’m very much a traditionalist. That’s my model. I think at some point we’re going to have find new ways to engage the audience and new ways to get to people who are not so traditional in the way they watch television. But for the moment we’re going back to what you’d call a traditional newscast. TVGuide.com: There’s going to be a bright light shined on the evening-news race when Katie Couric enters the fray in September. How do you feel about that? Gibson: There is a natural inclination to write about it as Charlie vs. Brian vs. Katie. I really don’t see it that way. My hope is that we have a competition between news departments. Essentially, the person in the chair becomes to say that here’s the product of ABC News and we think it’s better than the product of NBC or CBS, and that’s why we want you to watch. To the extent that I can, I want to downplay the personal aspects of the competition — and focus more on the department. The valuable thing that Bob Schieffer did for CBS was he said, ‘It’s not about Dan Rather or me; it’s about the correspondents and the content of the newscast every day.’ He simply said we’re going to go back to emphasizing the reportage of the broadcast, and I think he did that. That’s what was attractive to me about it. I hope to do the same thing. |
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