Vargas/Sawyer/Gibson: Morning Papers

> When will Diane Sawyer and Charlie Gibson begin their new duties?

> Los Angeles Times: “The move comes as an unsettling form of deja vu for ABC, which was forced into a similar juggling act last spring when anchor Peter Jennings was diagnosed with lung cancer.”

> Doug Elfman in the Chicago Sun Times: “Even as World News Tonight co-anchor Bob Woodruff recuperates from war injuries to his body and brain, ABC News isn’t backing down from any of its ambitious plans — not its multianchor broadcasts, not its Webcasts, not the airing of two live newscasts, one for each coast.”

> “An anchor person at the network level, particularly one with Elizabeth Vargas‘ resume, does not need training wheels, and ABC is insisting on installing them with Sawyer and Gibson,” Matthew Felling, media director for the Center for Media and Public Affairs, tells the NY Daily News. “It also sends the wrong message to the audience that she’s a JV anchor.”

> Andrew Tyndall thinks ABC would have been smarter to sub in correspondents of the evening show. Media Life Mag says: “Tyndall argues that the move defies the logic of the co-anchor setup created just a month or so ago for Vargas and Wooddruff. The idea was to have one anchor sitting at the desk and the other traveling to news hot spots, with the aim of building their reputations as journalists. Tyndall says that sort of image-building is something that neither Gibson nor Sawyer needs…”