Diane Sawyer Finally Gets Top Anchor Job

So long, Charlie.

ABC News just sent out a press release that Charlie Gibson, the "World News" anchor, will be leaving the highest ranking job on TV news. The anchor chair is the center of a news program's universe, and the evening news is the crown jewel of a network news division. Gibson's title goes to Diane Sawyer, who has held every other top position as both correspondent and anchor at both CBS and ABC.

Even if she weren't the most qualified person on ABC's bench, Sawyer deserves the promotion after taking a big one for the team in 1999, when, after years of co-anchoring a cushy weekly magazine, "PrimeTime Live" (where I was once a producer), she agreed to work the killer 4 a.m. daily shift at "Good Morning America." The important morning franchise was losing oxygen, and Diane is credited with reviving it.

Charlie's last promotion came late in his career, but he served nobly after Peter Jennings died of cancer in 2005, and though he could have kept his job long into his advanced maturity, he resisted a lifetime commitment. Television news is sentimental about its icons and, for a medium that so highly values appearance, is sensitive about age discrimination. Barbara Walters, Sam Donaldson, Mike Wallace and Don Hewitt, who died last month at 86, are all examples of long-lived people in the business who kept mentally agile by continuing to work long past retirement age. Though it may be the most prestigious job in TV news, managing editor/ network anchor on an evening news show is among the hardest in an industry full of notoriously difficult jobs. Diane will be 65 when she takes over at "World News." Charlie, who will be close to 67 when he leaves, apparently has more civilized priorities. He had long planned to retreat sensibly after a respectable career when Peter took ill and the top job came to him (Bob Woodruff and Elizabeth Vargas briefly co-anchored for an interim), and it looks like he stuck to his guns.

Though notable for its anti-ageism, the industry was not always as forward thinking about women in leadership roles, however. Though sadly fewer Americans get their news from television than they once did, it'll be nice to see both Diane and Katie Couric, news ladies who think, reading out loud on the picture tube for a few more years.