Diane Sawyer should keep her day job

Diane Sawyer -- keep your day job.

The veteran journalist and cornerstone of ABC's "Good Morning America" is no doubt feeling pretty good today. After 20 years at the network, she has finally ascended to anchor of the network's evening broadcast "World News Tonight" and will succeed Charlies Gibson in January.

Unfortunately, that's not the hot job in TV news anymore. While the evening newscasts still have a larger audience than the morning shows, the gap is not nearly as big as it once was. News is also not consumed the way it was when Walter Cronkite and David Brinkley were kings. It's nobody's fault. It's just the the changing nature of how viewers interact with media in the digital era.

Mornings, however, remain one of the few times of the day that television has a chance to hold and inform an audience and set the tone for the day. People like waking up with Matt and Meredith or Robin and Diane. We all get up at the same time, but we don't all get home at the same time. News is fresh in the morning and stale in the evening.

Furthermore, from a business standpoint, the morning shows are the cash cows for the news divisions while evening broadcasts are rapidly becoming relics of a bygone era. The morning shows attract a broader and younger audience and like it or not, that's what makes money. 

Of course, for Sawyer this is about cementing her legacy as a TV newswoman. But one could argue her legacy was set. She's done "60 Minutes," anchored "Good Morning America" and has been a key part of just about every major breaking story around the globe in the last 30 years. Yes, anchoring "World News Tonight" will make that Wikipedia entry a little longer, but the chair she covets has lost a lot of value over the last quarter of a century.

But it's not all bad. She gets to sleep in now, and she'll still get a great table for lunch at Michael's.

-- Joe Flint

Photo: Diane Sawyer. Credit: Neilson Barnard / Getty Images

Comments

[patricia taylor]

Dear diane: women all around the world love and admire you for your courage and bravery. good luck on your new job. patricia taylor

[dlauer]

does anyone watch evening news if your under 100 ancient history

[Richard Jacquot]

It is not the viewers who are responsible for the pathetic state of news programs on TV. There is an audience but it cannot find a channel that meets its need. News programs have become marketing programs for drugs, cleaning products, cars, etc. So, the remaining options are PBS and foreign TVs. I get most of my TV news from the former and from TV5.
Richard

[evening snooze]

Great post, JF. The evening news is like organized labor: much less important in real America than it is in America's newsrooms.

Prediction: All evening news ratings will continue to decline, but media critics will initially pounce on Diane's falling ratings as if they mean something. They don't.

[Achilles della Volta]

You folks got *part* of the story right (the only ones to do so by the way). Anyone thinking this is a promotion for Diane Sawyer is just as deluded as she is... this is squarely an opportunity to kill two birds with one stone. They are forcing the old, crusty dinosaur Gibson out, and precisely making room in the "cash cow" GMA for someone who can really drive it--and relegating the old dowager Diane Sawyer to the musty, dying World News Tonight. The brilliance of this move is truly exemplary! Diane thinks she is getting a promotion (only an old luddite bird would believe that), and Gibson gets to sail into the sunset "retiring"... it neatly avoids loss of face and potential lawsuits a la Dan Rather...

[Xtian]

Nobody under 50 watches the evening news anymore unless a Micheal Jackson dies, or there's a major world scale catastrophy!
It's not about will they be cancelled but when?

[soccerboy]

This is exactly what I've been saying all day. Plus, and I have to bring up the elephant in the room, but name one female nightly news anchor who's kept that job.

That's a shame, I know it - but it's also true.

[Pete]

What's new on the morning shows gets old very quickly - for me. All we seem to get is repetitive pop culture news, i.e., Michael Jackson, Octomom, or whatever gossip is currently in fashion. Sadly, that's what most viewers seem to relish.

[miriam goodman]

Joe - you make it very difficult for me to respect journalists - let alone the crap that passes for news on TV. First off state the problem with "news" - see Richard Jacquot below. Then keep your carping, miserable bitching about a woman's fantastic achievement to yourself. When you have managed the basics - try to be amusing.