What now for ABC News?
Share with others:
David Westin, a former corporate lawyer and ABC general counsel, was greeted with skepticism when he was named president of ABC News in 1997, and for years afterwards mocked as an empty corporate suit by a cadre he called, in a 2000 New Yorker profile, the "high priesthood of journalism."
But in the end it was the corporate parent, not the priesthood, that did him in. And when he sent out an e-mail to staff Monday night announcing his plans to step down after 13 years, many ABC News staffers, whose grudging respect Westin had won over the years, were stunned.
According to several people familiar with the situation, Westin was pushed out by Bob Iger, the president and chief executive of ABC's parent, The Walt Disney Company.
"This has been in the works for a while," said one longtime ABC News producer. "There has been dissatisfaction on both sides between the West Coast and Westin???.I think Iger is the one who ultimately made the decision and pulled the plug."
The move came as such a surprise in part because Westin had spent much of the last nine months making difficult choices at the behest of the "West Coast" -- i.e., Iger and Anne Sweeney, the president of Disney-ABC Television Group. He oversaw the cutting of nearly a quarter of ABC News' staff earlier this year, resulting in the loss of more than 300 jobs. And he installed Christiane Amanpour -- a West Coast favorite -- as the anchor of "This Week," against industry-wide doubts that the CNN foreign correspondent was a good fit for an inside-the-Beltway Sunday show.
But apparently there was too much "foot-dragging" in naming Amanpour, and not enough bounce to ABC's bottom line from the layoffs, to please the folks at Disney.
"Even though all these cuts have been made over the last few months, unfortunately, they weren't enough," the producer said. "More was needed. ABC was still not where they wanted to be."
First Published September 8, 2010 12:00 am
