Gibson Replaces Vargas/Woodruff on World News Tonight

I sure cannot say that I saw this one coming. Charlie Gibson is replacing Elizabeth Vargas and Bob Woodruff on World News Tonight as the Westin family continues to surprise network news viewers again and again.

Back in the day when I did consulting for ABC News, I had a one-on-one with Av Westin, father of David Westin who made the announcement of Gibson's replacing the young duo today. I worked with Tom Capra, son of the famous Hollywood director Frank, and was mainly seconded to 20/20, but Tom had set up much of the WNT mise-en-scene and intro, and also was Executive Producer of WNT before moving on to other pastures. So I for a short time was privy to some of the backstairs gossip of ABC newsies.

But I genuinely liked Elizabeth Vargas when I moved to Chicago in 1991 and she was one of the anchors on the local CBS affiliate evening news. Lots of Irish charm [Her mom's of Cooney heritage] and Latin charm, come to think of it. I wavered between CBS and ABC recently when Bob Schieffer replaced Jabba the Hut, and when Schieffer began bad-mouthing GWB [they just can't help it, the Heyward legacy] went to WNT almost permanently.

Gibson has a news-lite vibe about him. He may have interviewed "Kofi Annan, Tony Blair, the late Yasir Arafat, and Nelson Mandela" as the PR flack puts it, but except for Blair, these are not A-List references.

Diane Sawyer would have been my choice, but since nobody asked me.....